


Passim

by eldritcher



Series: Chorale [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Adult Content, Family, Love, M/M, Matchmaking eagles, Novella, Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:34:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 76,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eldritcher/pseuds/eldritcher
Summary: Here and there and everywhere, Húrin's heart is engraved with love, heedless of omens and soul's fire.
Relationships: Maedhros/Hurin
Series: Chorale [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2022304
Comments: 24
Kudos: 26
Collections: The Song of Sunset AU





	1. Oionos

**Author's Note:**

> It is a roller-coaster, but there is a great deal of love, and a soft place at the end. 
> 
> Written in the setting of the Sunset stories, in three acts and with Húrin's first person narration. As in most Sunset stories, themes of blasphemy, incest, violence, philosophy, and other adult content abound. 
> 
> In difficult times, as 2020 has been for most of us, I hope the stories bring you distraction and reading pleasure. 
> 
> (A gift story for Make-a-wish 2020)

**Act I: Oionos**

"We two have secret signs,  
known to us both but hidden from the world."

Turgon had welcomed us, though he had little cause to. I suspected that there was soothsaying at play. There often was, with the Kings of the Noldor. 

The Noldor, whom my kin had counsel with in Hithlum, were people of war. However, what spurred them to war was not the necessity that drove the Edain. No, their battles were not to keep their lands, women, and children safe. They sang of how Fingolfin had marched east, and of how his heralds had clanged their swords upon the gates of Angband, causing Morgoth to fear. They sang of the great eagle that had borne to Fingolfin his son and nephew. They fought for vengeance, for their fallen.

There were rumours, brought to my father's and uncle's houses, that my brother and I had oft overheard, of how their Kings were accursed. Foresight, the travelers would tell us, had doomed Feanor and Fingolfin both. Foresight had led Turgon to Gondolin, Finrod to Nargothrond, and Maedhros to Himring. 

\-------

  
I stood before the great training areas of Turgon's palace, and watched Glorfindel spar with my brother. 

"You could remain," Turgon said, joining me. 

His eyes were on his daughter, who sat in alcove knitting. Beside her, keeping her company, was her cousin, Turgon's nephew, Maeglin. Turgon worried about their flirtations, though I did not understand his concern. They were of age, of like heart. Maeglin was the son of Turgon's sister. It was a good match. Turgon often contrived to seat his daughter by my brother or by me. We were bewildered why he encouraged our attentions to her.   
  
"My father will need us in Dor-lómin," I said remorsefully. 

I wished to stay. So did my brother. Peace, as abided in Gondolin, was an idyll that we would find nowhere else on Arda. And yet, duty called us back to our kin, to defend our lands, to rule and to lead. 

"I have come to be fond of your brother and you," Turgon allowed, letting his courtly demeanor fall for an instant to show me his sincerity in speaking the words. 

"If we were not bound to our people, we would have entreated you to let us stay, King Turgon." 

Turgon nodded, saddened and yet resigned. 

"Why did you accept us, when the eagles bore us here?" I asked him curiously. After many dinners together, after sharing counsel and care, I felt emboldened to query. 

"Oh!" Turgon laughed, merriment turning his careworn features into handsomeness. "I had received a message that I might receive people of the Edain. I had not expected you to borne to me on eagleback. Thorondor, the Lord of the Eagles, that bore you here, is a good friend of mine. I trust anyone he brings here." His face settled into sorrowful calm. "Many years ago, he bore to me my father's corpse. And before that, he brought to us my cousin when we had little hope left." 

"The Prince," I breathed. "The High-King and the Prince." 

"Well, I suppose the minstrels do call them so," Turgon allowed, smiling. "Be that as it may, Thorondor brought you here, and I trust him."

"Do the eagles keep their eyries here?"

"They have eyries in many high mountains. Indeed, they had their eyries in the Thangorodrim once. You may find them here in the winters. In the summers, they fly to my cousin's keep in Himring. Thorondor is fond of his company."

"The eagles are beloved to Lord Manwë," I said, remembering my lessons in religion and lore. The Kings of the Noldor were not renowned for their fealty to the Gods.   
  
"Indeed," Turgon replied. "Thorondor, beloved to Manwë as he is, nevertheless applies considerable latitude in whom he deems worthy of his friendship." He turned to face me. "He will carry your brother and you to Beleriand on the morrow, Húrin." 

\------  
  
After dinner, I walked alone through the great hall of paintings, staring in awe at the torchlit tapestries of art created in Turgon's homeland beyond the Sea. There were hunters and hounds, maidens in pastoral landscapes of poppies, children playing merry in rivers, high towers, and bustling marketplaces. A far cry, I thought sadly, from the lot that was ours in Hithlum, in Dor-lómin, where we fought everyday to keep our people safe, where the enemy wore us down with pestilence and famine. If not for the grace of the Noldor High-King in Barad Eithel, our people would be under the yoke of Morgoth.   
  
I looked upon the fair faces portrayed in the tapestries, of princesses and princes clad in the garbs of common folk, only their mien giving away their nobility of blood. I espied Turgon in the paintings, standing between the High-King Fingon and his late sister. They were young and untouched by grief, in a way that neither my brother nor I had known in our lives.   
  
"Those of the Edain and of Doriath often resent them for having known no sorrow in their youth."  
  
I turned to see Lord Glorfindel walking towards me, wistfulness on his features as he looked upon the portraits.   
  
"It is tempting to resent them," I admitted. "However, I cannot do so, when I know that they have been defying Morgoth and paying the price for it for centuries. Their armies keep my kin safe. Their granaries keep my kin fed."   
  
Glorfindel nodded at the portraits. "I have not come to behold them for many decades now. The grief, I find, has lessened with time." His eyes lingered on Lady Aredhel. "I remember the children they were, before they came to crown and sword."  
  
We walked together, to the end of the hallway, where there was a portrait of a man ensconced between tapestries that depicted two women. The one on the right was gold of hair and fair of face, reminding me of the women of my people. The one on the left, black-haired and slight, paled in beauty compared to the golden-haired woman she was contrasted with, and if not for her unusual grey eyes she would have been unremarkable.   
  
"Finwë, Miriel, and Indis," Glorfindel explained.   
  
Miriel had been Finwë's first wife, the mother of Feanor. After her death, he had taken Indis to wife, and had sired two sons.   
  
"Did they truly war for their father's favor?" I asked curiously.   
  
"Finwë's children had little in common and rarely intermingled," Glorfindel commented. "Their children sang a different lay. We would not have been able to come East, defying the Gods, if not for the grandchildren of Finwë. They were close and of one heart."  
  
"Is it true that foresight plagues their blood?" I had not dared ask Turgon directly.   
  
"I was given to understand that you believed in free will, that no man has his fate drawn by the Gods."  
  
"I do not believe in foresight," I allowed. "However, I understand that there are many who believe, and enough belief may make the mythical manifest."  
  
"Well-spoken, Húrin!" Glorfindel exclaimed, impressed. I flushed at the praise from one so noble and wise. My brother and I nursed hero-worship for Glorfindel. He said, "I hold little with foresight myself. We are our choices and consequences. The notion of foresight would rob us of both, I think." He shrugged. "No deed that Finwë's children or grandchildren have undertaken has proven to me that they act from foresight. Merely laymen's myths."

\---------

The eagles bore us to Himring, where they meant to bide for the long summer. There was courting to be had, and mating, Thorondor told us. He had taken a liking to my brother and was regaling him with tales of aquiline romance, of daring courtship flights and displays of prowess. 

"We mate for life," Thorondor explained. "Life, sadly, is numbered in years in these war-ridden lands."   
  
"Why do you come here then? Gondolin is safer."

"The eagles cannot find love in a cage. Gondolin, young Húor, is a cage."

King Turgon, despite the pride he took in his city, missed his kin deeply. He mourned his sister, and ever hearkened for tidings from his brother and cousins. He feared that he might outlive them all, in his girdle of mountains. 

Rainclouds lingered over Himring, and Thorondor's feathers were heavy with moisture as his wings powered through the gale. Húor and I clutched tight as the mighty eagle careened through the cloudmass, breaking through to the low skies, and we beheld for the first time the mighty holdfast of Himring. 

"Brother!" Húor said then, alarmed, turning east, and I saw what he saw, the gates of Angband, and beyond the peaks of the Thangorodrim. I fancied that I could see dragons stirring about the volcanoes. 

"Hold tight," Thorondor told us, as he bore us down to the large courtyard. Children came squealing, excited to see the Lord of Eagles, and they began to offer him apples and cherries. 

"The Eagles! The Eagles have returned!" They shouted to each other, excited.

Thorondor let out a shrill piping cry, that was of little avail to warn away the children, as they came fearless to touch his feathers and brush them gently.

"As the master, so his people," Thorondor muttered, letting the children play. 

As Húor and I dismounted, we were objects of curiosity to the children and to the people that had flocked to the courtyard. They were hale and bore no signs of starvation, Edain and Elves both. I wondered how they found sustenance on bare mountains facing the enemy's gates. 

"Make way for the prince!" A soldier called out then.

The prince turned out to be simply clad in black robes, tall of form, unadorned by crown or sword, as he approached us. He bore semblance to his grandfather, but for his hair and his eyes. It began raining then, and the children scampered away, and I saw the stormclouds reflected in his bright eyes. 

"Will you find shelter, please?" The prince was chiding Thorondor. "I refuse to groom your feathers when you wish to go courting tomorrow." 

"I spent years striving to get your blood out of my plumage," Thorondor retorted. "This is the least you can do, princeling." 

"Very well then. Let us at least be of good manners. Introduce your guests to me, O Lord of Eagles."

"And beloved to Manwë!" Thorondor reminded him, brushing his great wing over the prince, smothering him in damp feathers. 

"I would not have suspected, what with your charming ways," the prince noted, gently shoving the wing away, emerging to greet us. 

He was drenched in the rain and smelled of feathers, but when he stood before us, I could only note how bright his smile was. 

"Húrin and Húor," he hailed us. "My lands welcome you."

"Lord Maedhros, we cannot tarry," my brother said. "We must ride to our father's people in Hithlum." 

"The rains have begun," Maedhros explained. "I recommend that you wait for their end. The path will be perilous now, with landslides and flashfloods."

"We must get to Hithlum," my brother insisted. "We require only serviceable mounts, Lord Maedhros. We are used to difficult terrain and changing weather."

Thorondor took flight then, taking care to ruffle the Prince's mane of curly hair, much to his victim's exasperation. 

"And he cannot fathom why his courting techniques show no success," Maedhros said, as we wondered how to react as he dragged his hair away from his face. His eyes were solemn, despite the farce. "There are dragons stirring in Angband. Let them hunt and sate themselves. You may leave after they return to roost."

"Dragons?" My brother laughed. "How can you know?" 

"I saw them," I blurted out then. My brother and Maedhros turned to look at me, one bewildered and the other wary. 

"They are beyond the sight of even the Maiar," Maedhros noted cautiously. "They are creatures of magic, and cloaked in the sorcery of their master, except when they are sent to battle."

He spoke the truth, I sensed, and yet there was more to it that he had refrained from telling us. My brother clasped my arm in support. 

"We will stay," I decided. 

\-----

Later that night, as I stood in my quarters, watching the lights in the villages below, I wondered why I had seen.

"If they were beyond the sight of even the Wizards, how did Maedhros know of their doings?" My brother had asked, when we had supped together. 

Húor had tried to convince me that I had not seen dragons, that it had been merely my imagination playing tricks on me when I had beheld Angband. He had only seen the gates and darkness had obscured what was beyond. Why had I seen more? 

Restless and burdened, I found no sleep. I whiled away the night writing a letter to our father, apprising him of our plans to travel to him as soon as we could.   
  
The rains did not cease. 

\-----------

We found company among the warriors of our host's household, who spent their days patrolling and hunting, and their evenings teaching the children to bear weapons. Even their women were taught. It aggrieved me to know that it was necessary, for they lived under the shadow of Angband. 

"Lord Maedhros does not join us," my brother remarked one evening, as he watched me teach a young boy to spar. 

"He keeps to himself," one of the warriors replied. "He is not the sociable sort, except for when his family visits."

"Is it a matter of rank?" I wondered. 

"Oh, it is not rank. He likes his seclusion," the warrior explained. "He comes often to watch duels in the barracks. He is fond of watching sparring. He is fond of hunting too, when he has family in residence. When he is alone, as he is now, he will while away a few mornings in the markets, in the villages. He does not like to watch the children being taught to bear weapons."

"Is he reserved when leading you to battle?" My brother asked. "A man that holds himself apart from the others cannot inspire others." 

"He is charismatic when he needs to be," the warrior said. "We followed him from Tirion, after all. I have heard that he is merely reserved in company that he does not know well, in settings that are not a court or a battlefield."   
  
After Maedhros's effusive greeting when Thorondor had brought us, he had not sought our company. If he kept a table, we had not been invited yet. His warriors had taken to us and were our primary source of gossip. I wondered at the contrariness of our host; that he could be so charming and ebullient in his conversation with Thorondor, and that we had seen neither hair nor hide of him since. Turgon had been taciturn by nature, and yet he had taken the pains to make us feel welcomed in his city. He had given us a place of honor at his table.

\---

I chanced upon our host, incongruously, in the kitchens, when I had been by to fetch a late night snack after sparring for hours with my brother and the warriors. The cooks were kind and generous to the soldiers, and they did not bat an eye when my brother and I came for repasts at odd times. Even in Turgon's palace of plenty, there had been rations for the barracks. I wondered how Maedhros afforded the extravagances on his mountainous lands. 

"Am I to save the chimney from the cat, or the cat from the chimney?" 

I stopped to watch. He was surrounded by his household, and a few maids were giggling as a cook faced him sternly, hands on her hips, unyielding. With a much tried sigh, he nodded and hitched up his robes to hold them out of his way, and clambered into the sooty chimney to lure out the cat. When I heard a screech from the beast, and a curse from Maedhros, I hurried to the chimney and peered up, concerned. 

"Don't!" Maedhros exclaimed, reaching in vain to scoop up the cat as it leapt to attack me. He swore as the cat scratched me. I was glad that I had had the sense to turn my head away. Maedhros landed gracefully on his feet beside me, and hastily clutched the cat to his breast, and moved away rapidly with the feral bundle of claws and teeth. 

"It is only me," he was telling the beast. And wonder of wonders, it quieted its ruckus. He let it down from his hold and it darted away. 

"Are you hurt?" The cook demanded, swatting his hand away and peering at the torn front of his robes. 

"I shall be fine," he demurred. "I must make my way to my chambers now." It was clear that he was uncomfortable being stared at, even if it was his own household. 

"Are you harmed, Húrin?" He asked me then, even if it was evident that he wanted to leave. "She does not take well to strangers. She is easily placated if it is someone familiar coaxing her out." His eyes widened when he noticed the scratches on my wrists. "We must have you escorted to the healers." Then he seemed to realize that he was my host, for he amended his words saying, "Let me escort you to the healers."

It was merely a few scratches. I saw no reason to decline, knowing how loathe he was to seek my company voluntarily. I wanted to understand why Turgon esteemed him so. 

I followed him through the corridors until we reached the house of healing. 

"I will take my leave of you here," he informed me.

"You are wounded too, and more than I am," I told him, concerned that he would not see himself tended to. He had clutched the frightened beast close to his chest, and I knew from the state of his robes that he must bear deep scratches on his skin.

"I am averse to the odours of their poultices," he explained. "I can tend to myself in my chambers."

"Then let me tend to you," I offered. "It is the least I can do to assist you for saving me from claw and teeth."

He hesitated, before offering me a charming bow and saying, "To your quarters, then?"

His reclusiveness was clearly no myth, I thought wryly, as I ushered him to my quarters. He was loathe to let a stranger enter his chambers. What secrets, I wondered again, did he keep? 

In Turgon's realm, I had often encountered Elves to whom my brother and I had been a curiosity, for they had not seen one of the Edain before. Maedhros had chieftains of the Edain commanding his armies. There were Edain and Elves both, with little segregation, in the hamlets and settlements in his realm. There was thriving commerce with both the Edain and the Dwarves. He was not unused to our kind. And yet, perhaps it was his way to seek other races as allies on battlefields and in trade, and not as visitors under his own roof. 

"I heard from Menor, the head of my household guard, that you have been teaching the children in the evenings," he murmured, as I opened the doors to my chambers and followed him in. He stilled a moment when I closed the doors behind us, and I wondered at his unsettlement as he swiftly walked to the windows to peer out. 

"I had not taken you to be interested in our doings," I said. 

He turned about, and his profile, a quarter lit by the banked fire in my hearth, was a soft, strong thing. He had come by his name honestly. The features that bore the shape of masculinity and stoicism in Turgon were hewn gentler on his cousin.   
  
"Am I as you expected me to be?" He asked quietly, bearing my gaze with equanimity, though his voice betrayed his discomfort. 

"I was merely trying to make out the resemblance to King Turgon," I said, wondering why he was ill at ease. 

"Ah!" He relaxed, smiling. "Túrkano and I have the same mannerisms when we are drunk."

"I doubt I shall be able to compare and contrast the two of you in such a setting," I said, laughing. "My brother and I are alike in our cups too. Perhaps blood outs when alcohol is amok." 

I fetched a basin and rags, and a jar of liniment that bore little scent that my uncle had taught me to make. 

"Let me tend to you first," he offered. I sat down in a chair by the fire and watched him deftly array the preparations in order, kneeling before me. I exhaled sharply, not having expected that. 

"My height-" he explained, cheeks tinged by self-consciousness. "I did not mean to startle you."

I gave him my wrists silently and observed him work in the firelight. He had done this, many a time before, and that was of no surprise, given who he was. And yet, unlike the manner of briskness that healers and comrades on the battlefields employed, he handled me delicately, washing clean the wounds and applying liniment with sure, swift, kind fingers. The dexterity he exhibited made wonder if he had been left-handed to begin with. His face was drawn in concentration, and he had lost his awareness of being watched so closely. There were eagle feathers in his damp hair. He had been out in the rains to seek Thorondor's company. That he found eagles easier to mingle with was curious. He smelled of petrichor, and of blood. He had taken the brunt of that silly creature's alarmed reactions. Turgon, I remembered, had smelled of wild lilies, for he daily visited the fields where he had raised cairns to his sister and father both. 

Maedhros tied off the wrappings with flourish, and looked up to beam at me with the pride of a task well done. 

"Thank you," I said honestly. "I doubt even the women of my household have displayed this amount of gentleness in dressing a wound."

He did not reply, as he got to his feet and set about to discarding the water in the basin. I looked at the dressings of gauze on my hands once more, and smiled at the care that was evident in their application. 

"Your turn," I called to him. 

He came hesitantly. 

"Let us treat the wounds on your chest first," I told him, turning my eye to practical matters. "Then we can see to your neck and hand."

He led campaigns frequently. I could not fathom his modesty as he undressed with care, ensuring that his robes were parted only to provide me access to his wounds. I cursed then, seeing the long scratches and the blood that had not yet clotted. I hurried with the rag and set about to cleaning the wounds. His hand was clenched over the arm of the chair, as he let me work. 

"Should I find something to alleviate the pain? Perhaps some brandy?" The wounds were not deep. Why had they affected his equanimity so? He must have had worse.

"Only a few scratches," he said. "I am-" he paused, weighing his words carefully as I began rubbing liniment into his skin. "I am unused to strangers touching me."

"Is it that I am one of the Edain?" I asked him curiously. "That will not faze me, if it were so. Some of my people have reservations about other races." 

"I am unused to anyone who is not of my family," he amended hastily, stricken at what I had spoken. "The Edain have been generous and kind to us. My brother, Carnistro, loved Haleth of the Haladin."

It must be true that he was unused to company that was not of his kin. His conversation, while courteous, did not have the affectations of one who knew how to hold back confidences to strangers. 

"I have heard of the tale of Beren," I offered, wishing to keep him in conversation. 

"Yes!" There was a sorrowful cast to his face then. "My cousin, Findaráto, died for Beren's cause."

"How fares Thorondor's courting?" I asked, wishing to set aside sorrow. 

"Oh! As it does every year!" He laughed, and I found that I liked the mellifluous sound of it. "Thorondor is traditional and set in his ways. He forgets, often, that he is of great age and that very few can match his skill in their daredevil courtship flights. Nevertheless, he hopes every year that he might find the one that shall outmatch him. He is quite adamant, you see, that he will mate only with his better." 

"And he has you to play valet," I teased him. 

"Yes! I protest the tediousness of it all, but he does have his way of charming me to play his chamberlain. His coat, I lament to Túrkano, is glossy and well-tended, when he takes flight for Gondolin. And when he returns here, he comes with soot on his feathers and all manners of earth's dirt. Perhaps, unbeknownst to me, my cousin and Thorondor have developed a fondness for wrestling in valleys of wild lilies. His talons are coated dark with the blood of orcs and wild beasts. I fancy he takes the slain to Túrkano as a cat takes rodents to his master."

So wrapped up in his merry tale was he, that he stayed pliant when I shifted his robes from his shoulders to his waist, so that I might wrap the gauze about his chest. There were scars on him, new and old, and I wondered how often he must ride out to gather so many. His kind healed swiftly. I realized then that if he was averse to the healers, and to strangers handling his wounds, that he might not be treating his injuries after battle. 

"And what does he bring you as gifts when you host him in the summers?"

"He brings me the occasional frog. This summer, I suppose he esteems me more, for he has brought me handsome and valorous young men." 

He looked up at me, eyes full of mirth. I watched him, taken by the sight of him with his robes pooled about his waist, wearing only the liniment and gauze I had applied to him, hair littered with feathers, and eyes brighter than the waterfalls in Turgon's realm that were oft dappled by rainbows. He noticed my stare, and turned his head away to the fire, stiffening in discomfort. 

"Did you invite the frogs to your table?" I asked, striving to keep my tone light to put him at ease once again. When I knelt before him and took his wrist to inspect his wounds, he held himself still as a statue. "These young men you speak of, they have been left to fend for themselves."

"I am not a good host," he said tersely, and I had to pry open his fingers from the fist they had curled into.

"Oh, Thorondor certainly has no complaints," I mentioned. 

He smiled then, despite his discomfort, and turned to face me once more. The raw sincerity in his gaze struck me. 

"I am often an object of curiosity to strangers," he confessed, letting his wrist relax in my hold. His eyes skittered to his right arm, and to the maimed limb. "They look at me and wonder what the Enemy had done to me, beyond the evident. There is a certain prurience to the curiosity of the public that unsettles me."

"It might be admiration. Nobody has lived to tell the tale," I reminded him. His endurance was lore and myth both, and had been taught to us by our teachers and sung to us by bards. Those of the Edain who marched and fought for him swore to him because of what he had survived. 

"I host balls and hunts every season. Large assemblies are easier on my nerves than hosting a table of a few."

He was said to be a diplomat. I could well fathom how large gatherings allowed him to portray himself as charming and nonchalant to the attention that he was subjected to. I wondered how he had fared before his people had crossed the Sea. While he may draw attention these days for what he had endured, once he must have drawn an equal amount of cynosure for his charm and looks, for the title he had held. 

"I have been remiss," he continued. "I shall let the household know that we shall sup together. Please convey my sincere apologies to your brother for the glaring deficit in my hosting capabilities." 

"There is no need for apologies. My brother and I come from hardy folk. We have enjoyed our meals with your warriors and counsellors. We can sup together in Thorondor's eyrie if that suits you more," I joked, daring to pluck a feather from his hair and brandishing it at him. He laughed and shook his head in chagrin. 

"Thank you for tending to my wounds," he said, sincere, as he did up his robes and tugged down the sleeves over his limbs to hide both bandages and disfigurement.

My chambers smelled of petrichor and damp eagle feathers after he had taken his leave. 

\-------------- 

Suppers with him were stilted affairs in the beginning, as he forced himself to offer conversation. He liked listening to our tales, and hearkened so to our stories from Gondolin, his face lighting up whenever we spoke of his cousin. My brother and I drew him out of his hesitancy over the days, while it rained incessantly, and he began to speak of his own volition without having to be coaxed. 

He kept a good table, even if one that was spare in comparison to Turgon's; there was wine and venison every day. While Turgon's table had a profusion of cheese and meats from cattle, Maedhros seemed to favor game. This night, we feasted on rabbits that my brother had snared and brought to the kitchens. 

"There are vineyards in the valleys," my brother remarked. "I had presumed this might be too cold a clime for grapes." 

I could not tell good wine from bad. My brother, however, had a more refined palate. He approved of the wines at Maedhros's table.

"I have experimented with different cultivars. Some thrive in the cold. This particular vintage is from the hothouses to the north. I picked up the idea from the Dwarves of Nogrod. They grow their warm weather foliage in hothouses."

His hobbies, I had come to know from the household, consisted of animal husbandry and agriculture. The horses he bred in his stables, chargers all, were coveted by many and a prime source of revenue in trade. He had a creative bent to his pursuits. He bred and raised war ponies for the Dwarves, cross-breeding until they were of a size proportionate to serve the Dwarves warriors they were traded to. 

"This is not an arable land unlike the realms of my cousins and brothers," he remarked. "It has been fascinating, over the years, to understand what manner of crop can bear the clime."

I found it apropos, that he found joy in cultivars that endured, just as he had once. 

"Why have the dragons stayed clear of your lands? There is no natural defenses from a dragon in the settlements of your realm," my brother asked then. Húor no longer doubted the existence of dragons. We had seen them in bright daylight, during our rides, as they soared down towards the Dorthonion to set villages aflame. 

"The mountains are excellent natural defense. The eagles reside here for half the year. The weather is inclement, even for the dragons, in the winter," Maedhros explained. 

"You faced a dragon in the Dagor Bragollach, did you not?" I asked, curious. "You defended Lothlann to cover your brother's retreat from the Gap."

"It is only an old wives's tale. I encountered no dragon on that expedition," Maedhros demurred. "The dragon I meant to battle set course to lay waste to the plains. Glaurung, he is called. His fate is tied to that of Beleriand." He looked at me then, as if he saw more. I raised my eyebrows. He shook his head and raised his flute of wine. "You are used to my conversational inadequacies. Pray, pay me no mind."

Húor and I had noticed his tendency to steer the conversation to safer waters whenever he slipped in his guard and mentioned something that pertained to fate or foresight. Perhaps he knew of how poorly we held these concepts, of how we treated them as superstitions and old wives's tales. 

My brother leaned forward, unwilling to let the statement pass, and asked, "Do you believe in foresight, Lord Maedhros?" 

Maedhros swirled the wine in his goblet, uncertain, no doubt choosing words with care as was his wont.   
  
"I know you have no belief in fate or foresight," he said finally, meeting our gazes. 

"And you?" My brother pressed. 

"I have seen Vaire's loom," Maedhros remarked. 

"So be it. Let us accept that fate is," I allowed. "What of foresight?"

All of Arda speculated on his foresight and madness. The jury was out whether it was madness that masqueraded as foresight, or if it was foresight that we saw as madness. 

"You know the tales," he said quietly, unwilling to meet our gaze. "You know they call me insane." It was evident that he had not meant to speak of it. There was a fine tremor in his fingers as he reached for the goblet and drained a long swallow. _A certain prurience in the curiosity of the public_ , he had termed the interest in him.

He looked past us then, to the peaks where dragons circled, where he had once languished for years before the first sunrise. "Perhaps it is merely the overactive imagination of one who has little left to anchor himself in the present. My family pities me for what I have become, and loves me regardless. I am reluctant to hold discourse on such matters. I cannot defend what I cannot describe, and what I cannot fathom."   
  
He cleared his throat and granted us a bright, forced smile. "They say that my grandmother had foresight," he noted. "I have never heard anyone label her mad."

"What did she see?" 

"I wish that I knew." 

My brother observed our host's discomfort, and changed the subject, asking, "Your guard is arrayed to ride on the morrow." 

"Yes, I mean to investigate orc attacks to the south east," Maedhros answered. Then he paused, and added, "If you wish, you may accompany us. I mean no offense by inviting you. I hope that my invitation is no breach of hostly decorum." 

"We keep no tally, Lord Maedhros," I teased him. "We are used to your barbarian manners, after many days of your hospitality."

\-----

  
"These horses have not seen battle before. Be wary," one of his soldiers told me, as he helped me set the saddle straight on my horse. Maedhros had given my brother and I chargers from his stables, fine beasts bred from the stock he had brought over from Valinor. Their like we had not seen even in Turgon's realm. 

The orc attacks turned out to be more systematic than he had initially informed us. They were far past the borders of his realm, on the no man's land between his rule and Morgoth's. 

There were outriders and wargs, there was the scorched sorcery on leaf and earth of Balrog fire, and the dust rising ahead portended something more dangerous. 

"A dragon, brother," Húor said in a low voice. There was both battlelust and fear on his face. I had not his stature or musculature, and yet they called me a mightier warrior. Would it matter before a foe such as a dragon? 

One of the trackers came back sprinting to where Maedhros remained waiting for news. 

"How many?"

"Two, my Prince! There are four balrogs."

"What do they hunt?" 

"A dwarven host," the tracker brought to Maedhros a bloodied epaulet.

"The heraldry of Belegost," I breathed, when I recognized the emblem.   
  
"Azaghâl, the Dwarf King," my brother confirmed. 

"We might be too late to save any, my Prince," the scout reported. "We are an hour or more away." 

"What about the odds?" I cursed. "Two dragons and four balrogs, as well as an orc host! We are outnumbered and outmatched!"

"Heralds to the front! Archers to the middle! Unfurl the banners!" Maedhros called, self-assured in a manner he rarely was at our suppers. He turned about to face the soldiers. "If the dragons are overhead, unhelm yourself! Cooking to death in your armor is inadvisable." 

Then he raised his sword, Feanorian steel, and the red gem set in its pommel caught the sun. It had been once the High King Fingolfin's sword. It had come to him, though the crown had not. 

"The dragons will not be overhead," he promised fiercely, and turned forward to lead us to the battle. The heralds piped up the high clarion notes of the house of Finwë, the same notes that they played in Gondolin to welcome Turgon to his court each day. 

The orc host was tired after their battle with the Dwarves, but the Balrogs were not. The dragons encircled the battle, breathing great plumes of magical fire uncaring of whether they slew foe or ally. The Dwarf King stood amidst his last defenders, unbroken and fierce. 

"Embolon!" The commander of the troops called out, and the cavalry shaped into a lethal wedge that pierced the lines of the orc host.

Maedhros withdrew to the flanks, letting his commander assume charge. At our supper table discussions, when it came to war and warfare, he had often said that he made a better strategist than a tactician, and that he was content to leave battles to his brothers and cousins. He had spoken highly of both his brother, Maglor, and of his cousin, the High King Fingon, noting their exemplary leadership on the field. His reputation as a fell warrior that the Enemy feared was in contrast to his reluctance to head battle. He was surrounded by his warriors even when he remained on the periphery, I noticed. It was true, then, that they feared Morgoth would take him prisoner once again. 

"Dragon fire!" My brother exclaimed, swerving to head my charger off the path of scorched earth. We were split from the main host, but the Balrogs and dragons paid no mind to us. Their focus was on decimating the Elven host and taking the Dwarf King captive. 

"No!" I exclaimed, in horror, when the dragons turned their attack towards the Elven host. Maedhros charged forward, easy in his seat as he seized his helm and flung it away, and his hair streamed stark red in the gusts from the beat of dragon wings. The largest Balrog, who commanded the assault, spoke guttural a word in the Enemy's foul tongue. There was malice in its eyes as it surged to the front. Was it the same Balrog that had brought death to his father? 

"Lungorthin!" Maedhros cried out, separating himself from the host, drawing the beasts to him, leaving a clear path for his warriors to relieve the Dwarves. "Flee, or you will be slain!" 

"Brother!" Húor shouted, kicking into his stirrups, riding towards Maedhros. I followed him, and when the Balrog lashed out with its foul whip, I had to clasp tight the reins to stay ahorse, for so stricken was I by the smell of burning flesh and horrifying cries from Maedhros's charger. He had managed to roll away, and I breathed a prayer of gratitude that he had been riding bareback. My brother came to cover him as the Balrog lashed again. Steel met sorcery and my brother screamed his war cry brave. I used his siege and exploited my smaller stature to swing beneath and cut off the clawed hoof of the beast's right leg. 

"To the right, brother!" Húor exclaimed, as we fell into a lethal dance of two we had practiced over the years together, swerving and assailing, pressing our advantage of two heads and four hands in synchrony. My brother was my shield and I attacked the beast leveraging my smaller form to its utmost, ducking beneath the limits of its flexibility and sight. 

It cried out, and the sorcery of its voice began melting my armor. 

"Fall back!" Maedhros yelled at us. "Fall back, Húor, Húrin! The corpse will smite you!"

My brother pulled me back as the ponderous construct of sorcery and flesh fell before us slain, leaving only smoke and soot. 

It changed the tides of battle. The Elven host had encircled the orcs and were systematically slaughtering them, with the experience of centuries spent patrolling Angband's porch. The Dwarves were rallying too, to their King, and they pressed forward towards the remaining Balrogs.

"The dragons!" Húor called out, throwing his shield bold into the path of dragon fire that was marked for the Dwarves. It withered into ashes, unable to withstand the sorcery of the flames. 

"They are young," Maedhros assessed, making for the wider open plains, so that he had clearance from the rest of his armies. The dragons charged towards him, unerring in their pursuit. "Archers! Aim for the eyes! Aim for the eyes! Wait until they are overneath me!" 

"Morgoth's teeth!" I exclaimed, horrified by his plan. I hastily ran over to a quiver of arrows lying fallow beside a fallen soldier, seized it, and ran perpendicular to his archers, calculating distances and angles in fear as the first dragon soared past him, casting him into shadow. The archers struck its head, but it swung its tail to flick the arrows away as flies. These were intelligent beasts, bred of Morgoth's malice, and they were playing with their prey. 

"Again!" Maedhros ordered, standing his ground, sword loose in his grip, as he watched the beast overhead. The second was approaching him from behind, and my brother's arrow struck its throat true. It reared, and spat out flames that shriveled shrubbery five hundred feet away. Maedhros had rolled away, and I realized his true intention. His archers nocked again, and he twisted himself to propel his sword in a perfectly executed arc, that struck the first dragon in the place between its belly and groin, making it lose height and direction, as it flapped its wings to steady itself, and then the arrows from the archers struck their mark, blinding it, and its blood drenched Maedhros as it fell ungainly on its side onto the plain, snorting fumes still. Maedhros walked coolly to the beast, dragged his sword from its belly, and leapt onto its mass to thrust it once again into its still stirring serpentine neck. When he turned to face the second dragon, he paused, and I saw in him fear for the first time. 

"He will hold you again, and you will be his until the end of the world," the dragon pronounced, intelligent, otherworldly, spun of malice and evil beyond fathom. Its gaze was hypnotic, and I saw the archers sway in its hold. 

"Go back, and tell him that he will not have me today," Maedhros declared, though there was no victory in his expression, as he faced the last survivor of our enemy. 

"When he has you again, Prince, no valiant can save you. Fate has made you his." 

The dragon's gaze parted a veil into the future, and I realized that it spoke the truth. I had not met fate before I had met a dragon. My brother, beside me, clutched my arm as he reeled under the same realization. The archers had their eyes closed, and their hands clasped tight over their ears, to dispel its foul hypnotism. The ones that had not closed their eyes were frozen by its gaze. My brother did the same, but I persisted, and remained frozen, for there was fate before me and I could not look away.

"Fate has deeded me to him, until the breaking of the world. And I have made him mine," Maedhros said, resolute, and I wondered if he must be truly insane to be unaffected by the dragon's mesmer. 

"My master delights in your futility. I will win him Beleriand, and drive you before me landless and dispossessed, Prince." 

"Glaurung, you should not have come today," Maedhros said then. He sheathed his sword and faced the beast, unwavering in meeting its snaring gaze. "Helm and realm bound, iron of death before the gate, your blood's death stained by fate."

"Soothsayer, madman, craven!" The dragon roared, furious at the fate that was spoken. 

"Nobody calls _you_ mad when you hand them fate," Maedhros remarked wryly, smiling despite the danger. His eyes shone with a fell light and the dragon stayed its fury. The white fire, they had called him, and I realized why they had named him so.

He turned away boldly from the dragon. My heart seized at his nonchalance, but the dragon roared and turned back, hastening to its master in the east. Unfrozen, I hurried to him, as did his archers. 

"My Prince! That was folly!" His commander was shouting. 

"Fate and folly, what makes one the other?" Maedhros mused, waving off their concern, and hurrying to the Dwarven host. 

"Prince Maedhros!" 

"King Azaghâl! It is, as ever, my pleasure to greet you." 

"So he says drenched in dragon blood," the Dwarf King roared, laughing merry, and his warriors shared in his mirth. "We shall burn our dead and be on our way home now."

"Let my people assist," Maedhros offered. "It shall rain for weeks. The Enemy will send fires down the Iron Hills, and the smoke will ensure that the rain is poison on the plains. Come with us to my closest holdfast. Let my healers tend to your host. Regroup, send for more warriors for your escort, and make your way home safe through Lothlann."   
  
"You have strayed away from your fort atop your hills, and crossed the borders of the March of Maedhros," Azaghâl said shrewdly. "You were headed to the Dwarf Road." He spoke true, I realized. Maedhros had not crossed his borders once since riding to defend the Gap to buy his brother the time to flee, during the Battle of the Sudden Flame. 

"I came to clear the orcs," Maedhros said, all charm and grace, and the Dwarf King threw his head back in mirth once again. 

"Keep your spies then," Azaghâl said graciously. "Lead us to your holdfast. I shall send a courier to my people."

"Go ahead," Maedhros told us. "I will remain behind with a dozen and cremate the dead."

I shook my head at my brother when he came to fetch me. He bid me be careful and made his way to the group of weary soldiers returning with the Dwarves we had rescued. 

"The dragon-" I began, joining Maedhros, helping his warriors that remained build a cairn over the dead. 

"Oh, he shall not return today. His master does not tolerate failure."

"The _dead_ dragon," I said then, exasperated and intrigued by his eccentricities. 

"Well, we shall cremate it too. The dead, whether it be theirs or ours, deserve no spite."

I stared at him. Fell he was, dreadfully beautiful in the sunset, marked by blood and fate, and the rainclouds gathered over us cast into his eyes a lambent softness.

"Imber," I said quietly, looking at the storm clouds, as the warriors cremated the dragon. "We call the cresting rainclouds so, among our people." 

"One of my favorite memories, of my father's house in Formenos, is the rain over the hills surrounding the fortress. The bricks were of a loamy sand, and they turned red under the rains. They were hollow and resonant, and storms were a song upon them. My father called them heartstones." He smiled wistfully. "His imagination ran away with him often, and a tendency to romanticise tempered him little. _Imber_. He would have liked the word. He was a keen student of languages. Indeed, the script of our people is of his make." 

"Does your brother, the bard, resemble him? They say that he is Feanor's true born." 

"My cousin, Aredhel, was like in temperament to him. It is true that my brother resembles him the most among my kin."

"You knew the Balrog. Was he one of those that attacked your father that day?" I asked, hesitant. My father was alive. I hoped that I might not be bereaved as Maedhros had been. 

"Lungorthin was not one of the number that slew my father," Maedhros replied calmly. "I made his acquaintance in Angband. He made sport of me in his master's court and entertained their armies. My brother wept over the marks of his claws on my skin after my cousin carried me back on Thorondor's back." 

I turned to face him, stricken by his matter-of-fact retelling of the tragedy. There was no sorrow on his mien. He bore fate well, as if it were all that he bore. 

"You were brave, today. Your brother and you worked as one mind in two bodies," he said then, looking at me with respect, and I grinned in pride at his praise. 

I watched over him as he set about a final sweep of the battlefield, ensuring that he handed out swift mercy to any dying, friend or foe, Dwarf or orc or Elf or horse. There was cold practicality to him that I had not seen in many before, be they of the Eldar or of the Edain. 

\---------------

When we reached the holdfast, there was merrymaking underfoot, the news having circulated by the warriors we had sent ahead. My brother and I joined the warriors in toasting to our victory and to our fallen. 

"To friendships!" Azaghâl toasted, raising his flagon to Maedhros.

"To friendships!" Maedhros cheered. He lifted his flagon in salute. "To the great King Azaghâl, Balrog-slayer!" 

"Hear, hear!" We shouted, toasting the mighty King. 

Maedhros, I noticed, was at home amidst the merry making, flitting about greeting everyone, at ease in conversation with both layman and soldier. He was a favorite of the Dwarves, I had heard, but I had not seen their fondness for him directly. He did not partake in the dancing or the games, but he held court on the sidelines, engaging his audience in lively conversation and debate. It rained, but the awnings they had constructed held, and underneath was firelight and gaiety as we danced and drank the night away, carried by the rousing spirits of the Dwarves.

I saw Maedhros taking his leave after midnight had passed. There was a stiffness to his form that concerned me. Had he been wounded and concealed it as seemed customary for him? I fetched a basin and rags, and liniment, and followed him to his quarters and rapped at his door sharply. 

"Húrin!" He exclaimed. "Is all well?"

"I ought to ask you that," I said, nudging open his door with my hip so that I might enter his chambers. They were spare, hastily furnished by the maids in a matter of one or two hours, and bore none of the luxuries that characterized the fortress on Himring. The linens on the bedding were clean, and they had procured for him an iron-wrought bath. 

"You were near limping," I told him. "Are you wounded?"

"The dragon set my horse on fire. I did not roll away as swiftly as I ought to have," he explained. He waved away the liniment in my hands. "These are minor burns. I shall not need that, Húrin. Thank you." 

"Let me be the judge of that," I demanded. Turgon had called me obstinate, as had my uncle.

"Who am I to naysay a balrog-slayer?" Maedhros muttered. I raised my eyebrows at that. 

"You were a terrifying sight to behold. I was not the only one in awe," he added hastily, lest I be offended by his wryness of earlier. 

"No cajolery shall avail you from my self-appointed task to ensure you are ready to ride home tomorrow," I warned him. 

"I find your tenacity damnably inconvenient, but I suppose I shall overlook it as you act in my best interests," he replied. He smiled then, charming and boyish in his sincerity, and I made to embrace him, overwhelmed by the day's events, by the risks he had run, by how he had given the dragon words of fate, by how he had stood unwavering when his own fate had been spoken. That he was alive yet! That I had survived the day! 

He was stiff in my embrace, and I let him go swiftly, wishing not to discomfort him. 

"Let me see the burns," I said, reverting to the task I had come to attend. He nodded and perched upon the rim of the large bath vessel they had procured for him. Then he hiked up his robes to his knees and showed me the burns on his calves. For once, I admitted, he had not understated the concern. They were minor, and he would recuperate completely if he were to pay mind to friction and to infections. I pulled a chair to him, and tugged his left calf onto my lap, so that I could inspect the burns more closely, and applied the liniment generously despite his protests. After a few minutes, he resigned himself to my obstinacy, and silently offered me the other leg for the same treatment. There were goosebumps along his skin. It was not cold, for the rains had turned the plains humid. Had he caught a chill? When I briskly rubbed along the instep of his foot to bring warmth, he startled and pulled his leg away clumsily. 

"Are you wounded?" I asked, alarmed by the reaction. "A fracture of the phalanges?" 

"No, no," he said, shaking his head rapidly, meeting my gaze in chagrin. "You must not take my ineptitude at social graces as indicative of any judgement of you."

My brother had observed that it might be the history of the captivity in Angband that had turned Maedhros leery of company that was not of his own kin. He had not danced. Outside battle, he did not seek or initiate physical contact with man or woman. 

My brother and I were young. We had only known of life and death on the battlefield. Maedhros had lived through an outcome that was neither life nor death. The Balrog my brother and I had slain had made sport of him in Angband to entertain Morgoth's troops. The enemy's methods of torture were spoken of in hushed whispers. My father and uncle did not believe in convalescence of the rescued thralls. Our people had killed them to grant the mercy of an ending. 

"I apologize!" I said hastily, rising to my feet, placing a few feet of distance between us. "I had not meant to resurface old griefs." 

The turmoil and mortification in his gaze upon hearing my words crushed me in self-recrimination. I gathered my liniment and hastily made for the door, wishing to sour no further a day of celebration. 

\------ 

On the first morning when the rains cleared, Azaghâl set out with his people. At leave-taking, he came to Maedhros. 

"I am indebted to you and yours, Prince!" The generous Dwarf King declared. 

"Perhaps I might bother you for a ration of coal one day," Maedhros replied, smiling brightly. 

"I have a gift for you, wrought by the greatest smith of our time, Telchar of my people," Azaghâl said, with no acknowledgement of Maedhros's odd statement. Most of his allies, I was coming to understand, paid little mind to his eccentricities of speech that the common folk termed madness. 

The helm was of gold and steel, visored, and upon its crown was the sculpture of a dragon. Maedhros bowed and accepted the helm graciously, though he did not place it upon his head. 

"How does the work of my people compare to the work of your kinsmen?" Azaghâl asked, good-humored, as Maedhros examined the detail of the sculpture, running a long finger down the dragon's back and down the edges of the visor. 

"The work of your people adorn my court in Himring, and my cousin's court in Barad Eithel," Maedhros reminded the Dwarf King, diplomatic as was his way. "The dragon-helm reminds me of the beasts we vanquished yesterday, and I shall cherish it as a souvenir of the day the Edain, the Naugrim and the Noldor raised our weapons together to defy Angband."

"Well spoken, Prince!" Azaghâl pronounced. "May we prevail in sending the worms and their accursed master to their deaths the next time fate and fortune bring us together!"

Maedhros smiled, and before he spoke a word, Azaghâl waved, saying briskly, "There, there, my lad, let us not part on your riddles and mysteries." 

Maedhros laughed at the preemption, and exchanged final pleasantries with the Dwarf King and his commanders before they set out for Belegost. 

\-----------------

The ride back to Himring was slowed by the rain, and by our careful pace as we rode back on untried horses which were not comparable to the fine beasts Maedhros had bred in Himring. I suspected the commander had also called for a more sedate pace keeping in mind the burns Maedhros had incurred from the battle. 

"You are distancing yourself from the good prince's company," Húor told me, as we broke camp one morning.

I could have cobbled together denials. My brother knew me well, and I doubted any facade would withstand his scrutiny. Maedhros had continued to be cordial to us, in his own manner, gracious and reserved. 

"I blundered in my last conversation with him," I admitted. "I fear I may have brought to the fore memories of his torment in Angband."

My brother chewed on his tack, thoughtful. 

"Do you remember what King Turgon said about him?" Húor asked. He went on. "Turgon said that his cousin is not one to hold grudges or nurse grievances. We have seen little evidence to the contrary in our time with him."

"Father taught us that thralls are despoiled in ways unspeakable, even if they are not women," I said fearfully. "I cannot-" I gulped. "Maedhros said that the Balrog we killed had made sport of him in Morgoth's court. I cannot dare imagine the griefs that must have been visited upon him in captivity."

"Then don't!" Húor hissed. "Lord Maedhros is an excellent diplomat and an able administrator. His battlefield tactics leave much to be desired, but I suppose that the Dwarf King has no complaints on the matter. That is all we need know. Our father and uncle shielded us from the knowledge of the enemy's torture mechanisms so that we may unflinchingly defend our lands and our people. It is not our place to wonder, brother, for that way lies fear and indecision." 

"Our people kill the thralls we rescue," I said hoarsely. "Is that right? What of recovery? What of rehabilitation?"

My brother looked at me in pity. Then he clasped my arm and said, "Peace, Húrin. Their ways are not our ways. All I know, brother, is that if you were taken captive, I would come to save you. If you were returned to me, I would see you recovered."

I watched Maedhros as he held discourse with the younger warriors at the rear of the party. The thralls that came to our lands in Dor-lómin had been as the dead, devoid of rationality and courage, crippled and maimed, afraid to speak lest they were subjected to cruelty. They had not been recognizable even to their kin. We wasted neither food nor healing on them. Instead, we would interrogate them for a few days, in vain hope of gathering intelligence, and then we executed them in the barracks, and then we buried them under unmarked mounds away from the other graves. 

Tales sang of how Fingolfin had handed out gold and favors to Edain and Naugrim, to the Green Elves and to the outlaws, in a bid to obtain information to save his nephew. The bards brought to the courts of Beleriand the sad lays Maglor Feanorion had sung in the Noldor court as he grieved for his lost brother. Their brothers and cousins had bravely ranged far and wide in unknown lands, seeking allies and news. Our people romanticized the dangerous journey Fingon had undertaken to bring his cousin home. 

My brother had sworn that he would come to save me. I knew that I would do the same for him. 

Perhaps thralls were meant to be saved only if they were loved by their kin. 

\-------------

At Himring, we settled into our routines with little fuss. The dragons, Maedhros told us, were still roving over the plains, laying waste to settlements and encampments, harrying the kingdoms to our south. He recommended that we wait out the summer in his fortress before we made for our father's lands. We did not need to be convinced. My brother and I had little desire to stray across a dragon's path again. My dreams were disturbed since our return, filled with memories of the dragon's gaze and how I had been frozen under its spell. Sometimes, it mocked me and burned my brother to death, while I watched helpless. Sometimes, it killed the Dwarf King, decapitating him. Sometimes, it spoke to me of how it would lay waste to my father's lands, and kill my family. Sometimes, it seized the Prince in its talons and spirited him back to its master while I stood by and did nothing to aid him. 

In Morgoth's court, there were balrogs and dragons, and the fallen torturer Sauron. Glaurung threw the prince at Morgoth's feet, and Balrogs drew close to entertain their master with sport. The prince was bloodied and weeping, and he screamed as they hacked off his hair and gouged out his eyes. 

"No!" I screamed with him, and woke.  
  
It was nearing dawn. I would not find sleep again, I knew. With a trembling sigh, I raked my hand through my hair, mopping away the sweat beaded on my forehead, and grasped my cloak in haste before departing my quarters. Perhaps a walk outside would settle my nerves. 

I had just entered the courtyard, and was idly looking about for convivial conversation with one of the household guard stationed there, when I saw Maedhros briskly walk up one of the side paths that led to the glacial lakes in the hills. He was unaccompanied. Shaken by my nightmare still, I swallowed, and made for him, reluctant to let him travel alone even if he was in his own domain. He turned about on hearing my footsteps. 

"What is amiss?" He asked, alarmed, seeing the state of me.

"A nightmare. A trifle." I waved away his concern. "Where are you headed to? May I accompany you?"

"Your directness of speech reminds me of my brother," he said wryly, ushering me on. "I had set out to visit the eagles."

"Tell me about them," I requested. 

"Manners!" He chided me half-heartedly. I could see that he was the eldest of his cousins and brothers. "My uncle often said that swords could only win you the battles your manners had failed to win."

"Very well, then, let us not have war between us merely because I have not displayed courtly manners," I said, laughing. "Please, Lord Maedhros, may I beseech you to regale me with tales of the mighty eagles that roost here?"

"My brother, Macalaurë, would enjoy your company," he said wryly. "The eagles are territorial, in this phase of their courting. Thorondor is of great age, and more inclined towards visitors than the rest of his kin are. If you approach the eyries alone, I warn you not to encroach without providing the eagles ample warning."

"Thorondor likes the company of the Elves to that of his own kind, Turgon said."

"I had not known that my cousin gossiped," Maedhros remarked. 

"How could you not? He writes you voluminous reams of correspondence. Surely that cannot be strategies and grand designs. Glorfindel was certain that Turgon held court only so that he might keep himself current with the grapevine of the city." 

"I have noticed that realms as Nargothrond, Gondolin, and Doriath, due to their relative isolation from the trade routes, must by need manufacture their gossip domestically, and often the populace applies themselves to the task adroitly." He laughed then, and continued in a tone of self-deprecation. "I must say that I am culpable too. I have not left my lands in many years. When I write to my kin, I grasp for gossip, from the barracks, from the stables, from the kitchens." 

"Are your duties onerous in your realm that you cannot travel as you wish to?" I asked. "My father and my uncle travel often, to meet their clansmen and allies." 

"I had my fill of travel in my youth, in Valinor," he said thoughtfully. "It feels as a dream, as memories of another man, but I travelled wide and far, from the high Pelori ranges to the great sea, on errands to the Valar on behalf of my grandfather, who was then our King. My father and my mother were artisans both. They prospected for lode and led a nomadic life, returning home only when my mother's labor was upon her. Since I was raised by my uncle, I had travelled to see my parents often. Later, they were separated, and I travelled between them. My father was then exiled, and I travelled from his fort to my uncle and grandfather. I lived on horseback, as my family is fond of recounting. Whenever I came home for a spell, my cousins and brothers would drag me on their hunts and foraging, and we would travel together for months, under the skies, with neither tent nor retinue."

I could fain imagine King Turgon sleeping carefree under the skies, with no valets and chefs in attendance. And what of their women? My brother and I had ridden together to many a land, without warriors or pomp, but we were men and required little to subsist on our journeys beyond the necessities of food and water. 

"What of your women?" I asked. His reserve, I had come to understand, was one of precaution than one of temperament. Whenever my brother or I had asked him questions, he had shown forbearance and had not condemned us for our curiosity yet. 

"Oh, Artanis and Irissë, my cousins, can hold their own anywhere. Artanis is the bravest of us. Irissë-" he sighed. "Irissë was an unmatched equestrian. She was an excellent huntress too. She was as my father, wild of spirit. She used to steal breeches from her cousins and brothers, and wear them under her skirts when riding. When her menstrual blood was upon her every month, she would pilfer my tunics, for they used to be of Vanyarin cotton, and she preferred the fabric for her rags." He paused, noticing my aghast expression. 

I had heard that women bled during their coming of age. I had heard that women bled in the wedding bed. I had heard that women bled when giving birth. Feminine mysteries, our grandmother had told us, were a woman's concern. His nonchalant narration of feminine mysteries made me color in second-hand mortification. 

"We segregate our women from the men, when raising children," I informed him, trying to find equilibrium again. 

"I did not mean to offend you," he said, clearly striving to correct the faux pas he had made. "My family is close-knit. We have little in the way of mysteries or secrets from one another." 

"And what of those married?" I asked curiously. "Did the spouses find it easier to take as own their husband's house and kin?"

"Our family has been unlucky in matters of the heart," he admitted sadly. 

I wondered if there was credence to the rumors of how the High King was his lover. Húor and I had discussed it in depth, as lads trading gossip and tall-tales in the barracks, and then with traders gambling, and then with Turgon's warriors. We had tried unearthing information from the household in Himring, but they had turned out to be close-lipped when it came to their master's affairs. 

Warriors sharing embraces was a lurid secret that many spoke of, in encampments of battle. However, it was not love. Love between two men defied our understanding of what marriage meant. It seemed to be no less taboo among their kind, though there were a few in Turgon's realm that showed predilections for their own gender. Glorfindel, generous to a fault, had tried to explain how it was no different than falling in love with a woman, but neither my brother nor I had understood his explanation. We had not dared broach the subject with King Turgon. 

"Here we are!" Maedhros exclaimed, drawing to a stop at the entrance of the eyrie, announcing our arrival. 

There was the flush of exertion tinging him. He impatiently raked back curls of his astray hair from his face. Dawn was lovely on his skin, I noticed. 

"Princeling!" Thorondor greeted him. "Ah! You brought along your handsome gift from your cousin." 

"I doubt that my cousin intended to make a gift of young Húrin," Maedhros remarked, ducking underneath the eagle's wing before it shoved him down. "You are feisty today."

"I heard from the winds that you committed no less than twelve acts of folly since your last visit, stupid Noldo. A dragon? And Glaurung, no less? They call him the father of lies!"

"His propensity to lie was hardly my concern at the moment of our introduction," Maedhros reparteed, staying well clear of the range of Thorondor's wings. "Húrin was with me! We were in no danger."

"We were outnumbered. They had two dragons. They had four balrogs and a large orc host," I explained pleasantly, laughing at the sight of Maedhros trying to avoid Thorondor's wrath. 

"Another survey mission, was it?" The eagle asked, in a forbidding tone. "The blood took years to wash off my feathers after your last display of strategy." 

The rescue. I wondered how Maedhros was unaffected by the reference. Was it the long friendship that permitted Thorondor to make allusions to the grievous past without saddening the prince? 

"Oh ye of little faith! We slew the balrogs and a dragon. We saved the Dwarf King."

"I have a point to make," Thorondor ruffled his feathers, puffing up in faux pomposity. 

Maedhros looked wary. 

"When I court a potential mate, I take on death defying stunts of avian acrobatics to impress them."

"Courting Glaurung was not an objective of my mission to the plains," Maedhros commented. 

"You like valorous bipeds," Thorondor muttered. "You like them better if they are clever and see through your obfuscations. You have been flattering the Dwarf King for a few years now." 

Was he in jest? I looked to my companion, who held on to a face of solemnity, and only the mirth in his eyes gave him away. 

"He is married," Maedhros sighed. "The quest continues. Now that you have remorselessly made known to Húrin the secret of my infatuation with the Dwarf King, may I assist you in grooming your coat? I have to hold court in four hours."

We helped Thorondor groom his mighty wings. Once again, I was struck by the wingspan he possessed. Little wonder that he had wounded Morgoth when the enemy had met Fingolfin in single combat. Maedhros had done this many a time before, as was evident in the ease he displayed with our task. I wondered if so had King Turgon. The rumor in Gondolin was that Turgon spent more time with the eagles than with his own people. 

"Refrain from seeking dragons," Thorondor called out, as we took our leave. 

"I shall!" Maedhros agreed easily, and diplomacy was another name for deception.

"Refrain, or I might visit your brother soon," Thorondor warned. 

"Threatening your host in his own home!" 

I wished to meet this brother of his, Maglor, whom both King Turgon and the household at Himring had spoken highly of. Thorondor seemed to think, as they had, that Maglor's word was law when it came to his eccentric brother. 

\----- 

We had fish that night, for the lakes were flush with pike. 

"I have not had pike before," Húor remarked. "Turgon's lakes are known for trout. And on the plains of our people, the waters are known for bass and herring." 

"You will tire of pike by summer's end," Maedhros promised him, slivering the fish on his plate, and idly rifling through with his cutlery. 

His consumption at supper was erratic. The warriors had said that it was the same when riding too. 

"Have you tired then?" I asked. 

"Food is not my pleasure," Maedhros admitted, giving up on the fish and turning to the glass of buffalo-milk that the maid placed meal side for him everyday. It had a strong scent, but he managed to stomach it every night. There were rumors that it was meant to strengthen his flagging constitution. He seemed hale. I wondered why they considered his health fragile. Elves did not require meals in the proportions that the other races did, or so I had seen in Turgon's land. 

He caught my observation, and looked away.

"I was in the settlement twenty miles north today," Húor said. "It was a spring festival. There were many betrothals and dances for the youth."

"It is spring, isn't it?" I wondered, looking outside at the rain. "Does it rain every year through spring and summer?" 

"It has been so in the last decade," Maedhros replied. "I think my neighbor is busy in his forge. The weather changes due to the pollutants whenever he busies himself with his arcane sorceries. He must be breeding more dragons." 

We stared at him in shock at his nonchalance. 

"Have you warned the plainsmen and your King?" Húor asked in alarm.

"Your father could read the signs better than I can. Those of the Edain learn faster than my people do," Maedhros said quietly. "The rains over Dor-lómin are unnatural for the clime. The forges in Angband turn the winds and the tides, with the dust and coal they spew."  
  
"Let us not speak of such matters tonight," he continued, casting a glance at the peaks of the Thangorodrim evident through the cloudbanks and the rain. "Húor, how was the fest of spring?"

"There were young men dancing with their own!" Húor exclaimed. "Even in Gondolin, even amongst the Noldor, I had not seen such an open display. I must admit that it surprised me to see youth of the Edain be so bold."

"Dancing?" I asked, shocked. 

"And exchanging intimacies, under the sun," my brother added, scandalized. "Our father would have sentenced them to a good thrashing in the square. Do you not hold Orome's laws in your land, Lord Maedhros?" 

"I have better matters to devote my time to than upholding edicts that are senseless and cruel. They live in times of war. I cannot promise them that they will die in their beds of old age. I can promise them that I will not persecute them for what they choose to do with their bodies." 

The rulers of Doriath held to Orome's edicts. Turgon seemed to practice studied ignorance when it came to his warriors and courtiers. Our people punished those infringing upon these laws, though even we turned a blind eye to what went on in battlecamps after alcohol and adrenaline. 

"Is this the High-King's stance?" I asked, curious about their laws. 

My brother threw me a sharp glance. I realized my folly, remembering the rumors about the High-King and our host. Maedhros remained unperturbed, but I could see the cloaked emotion in his eyes. 

"You are noblemen. We have drawn sword together. You have saved me on the battlefield. You may judge me, but I trust in your discretion," he said quietly. He did not look away. There was none of his usual hesitance when it came to discussing what pertained to himself. For the first time, I saw what our enemies saw in him. 

"I am drawn to men. I had a lover in Valinor, one of the Maiar. We were together for many decades before the Exodus separated us," he told us. "While I have lapsed into abstinence and disinterest towards most pleasures including food and dancing and romance, I cannot condemn anyone for it." Then he added, with a wry grin, "No, I am not the High-King's lover, or catamite, or whatever quaint term they use these days. There is no scandalous barter that I made for my rescue, or for forgiveness for burning the ships, or for our continued alliance. It makes for a good yarn, I cannot deny. I understand why the bards are fond of it."

I beheld him, torn between awe and admiration, and scandal and anger. How dare he burden us with this confession? How could I look at him again without thinking of this? How brave was he to tell us, knowing how our laws treated such crimes? It might cost him allies and loyalty. It was easier, for everyone involved, if we could as King Turgon practiced, turn a blind eye to the obvious as long as it was never paraded or spoken of. 

\-----

"You are angry," Húor commented. I had dragged him out to spar, though it was raining and nearing a storm. 

"Why are you angry?" He asked, as he swung his staff to untether my stance, an opening I would not have given him had I been calm of mind. "We know that their ways are not our ways. Their people are not unused to dalliances of the same sex. We have seen it in Gondolin."

"I am not angry!" I gritted my teeth and ducked underneath his guard, swerving hard to land a kick to his gut. He jerked, but held his ground. He was used to my tactics. 

I lost to him. I had not lost to him in four years. 

"What is it?" He demanded, as we dragged ourselves back to our quarters. 

"Why did he tell us? He should not have! How can we look at him again without thinking of his confession?" I blurted out, furious, though I did not understand why. 

"What does it matter?" My brother asked, perplexed. Then he stilled, and reached to clasp my shoulder. 

"You are attracted to him," he said lowly. 

He arrested my punch with his hands deftly. 

He said nothing more. 

\------------------

Youth and hubris were rarely estranged. Despite the niggling voice in my head that sounded like Húor, I devised a plan to settle once and for all, to myself, and to my brother, that I was not attracted to men. 

I drank down a flagon of mead, grabbed another, and a bunch of grapes, and made for the royal quarters. The guards were difficult to cajole, but I was unarmed and they knew me well. 

Maedhros was in his work chamber, writing epistles as was his routine after supper. He sent the couriers out at dawn. 

"May I keep you company?" I asked, knowing that subterfuge would be of little avail. 

I placed the mead and the plate of grapes between us. He raised his brows, bewildered that I had sought him, and nodded sharply at the shelves behind me where there were delicate flutes and other glassware. I fetched two earthen mugs and brought them back. Without waiting for his say-so, I poured us both a goodly measure of the mead. 

I watched him quietly as he wrote letter after letter, his brow knit in concentration and his attention wholly on his task. By when he rolled up and sealed his final letter, it had crossed midnight, and I had begun making inroads into my second mug of mead. 

I watched him take a cautious sip of the mead I had poured out, and tracked the swallow from his lips down his throat. 

"Húor, my brother, thinks that I am attracted to you," I said then, fortified by the alcohol. 

He stilled, before placing his mug carefully on the desk. We watched each other in silence for a few moments, before I broke eye contact and turned to pour myself more. 

"Are you?" He asked, finally. 

"How did you know?" I demanded. "How did you know that you fancied men?"

He was pained by the conversation, it was easy to tell. He had not castigated me yet, and he had not called for the guards. I waited. 

"You are better served looking for answers elsewhere," he said softly, as if not to spook me. "My memories of that period of my life are unreliable."

He had not returned from his neighbor's hospitality intact, after all. Grief seized me, and I hated the strength of my emotion. The caution on his expression leavened into compassion when he saw my fingers clenched into fists. 

"Let us drink," he offered. "I have no pressing obligations tomorrow. Come with me."

He ushered me to the family wing, and I laughed at where he had led me to. There were no attendants anywhere, I noticed, and wondered if he loathed being waited upon.

It was as the dens of the people of Marach, where they smoked the fruit of poppies and spent their afternoons in languor in the hot baths. I had heard that the Noldor royalty were known for their hedonism. The baths at Barad Eithel were famed. Turgon had constructed a version of his own in Gondolin. Maedhros, even if he be in inhospitable climes, had not shied away from building his own. 

Unlike the dens of the Marach, and unlike Turgon's baths, these were not enclosed under a roof. Instead, the skies were above, cloaked by clouds, and the rains fell on the mists rising from the hot baths. The waters were green, and smelled of sulphur. The decor, I was mortified to realize, I recognized as characteristic of him; functional and aesthetic. The skeins of blues on tile and enamel, on wall paintings and pillar engravings made me wonder if it was his favorite color. There were alcoves about the baths, and they looked pristine, as if he had not entertained in a while. It must be so, I thought, since he seemed reclusive except when his family visited. He must court and entertain allies and merchants in the eastern wing he used for audiences and for receiving warriors's oaths. 

He led me to an alcove and bade me sit, before taking himself away. When he returned, he came with two flagons of the mead I had been partaking of earlier. 

"How do you heat the baths?" I asked, curious, as I watched the vapors rise into the air to meet the rain. 

"It was my uncle's idea! He had built the baths beside the Mithrim during my recovery, because my cousin, Artanis, had learned from the people of the Sindar that it would aid my convalescence. My grandfather had designed a similar bathhouse in Formenos, where my father had been exiled. While none of us were prone to remain indoors for sustained periods of time, we converged, when we did, in the baths. My grandfather's design was remarkable for its open roof. My uncle noticed that I had a disinclination towards closed spaces and low ceilings, and recommended that I model the baths here after grandfather's design." His enthusiasm when speaking of his kin, I noticed once more, was infectious and engaging. He went on, "When I wrote to my uncle about the complexities of procuring warm water on a continual basis, he suggested that I tap underground. Where there is a forge, there is heat. Where there is a volcano, there is heat. My neighbor, my uncle noted wryly, had both forge and volcanoes. He was proven correct. I sent for craftsmen and miners from Belegost, and the Dwarves were able to find many heat sinks underneath Himring. We devised several uses for them." He waved at the baths in illustration. 

I was torn between laughter and horror, at what his uncle's diabolical genius. We drank in silence for a while. The vapors had induced lethargy in me, and I felt my reflexes slowing. It was a relief to not cling to the stress and anxiety I had carried in me for days, as I feared my brother's pronouncements, as I loathed the complexity of emotion our host had unwittingly invoked. 

I enjoyed his company. That was all there was to it. I focused on the architecture once again. 

"Is the open roof safe from dragons?" 

"The dragons draw the line at kidnapping princes from their baths," Maedhros said, and I laughed at the mischief in his voice. Thorondor, I wagered, would have a word or two to say on the matter. 

He smiled when I leaned back against the stone of the alcove in relaxation, stretching my legs underneath the table. My boots struck his robed calves, for the alcove was not designed for achieving separation. He shifted away politely, without remark. 

"You were not afraid of the dragons," I whispered then, thinking of how I had been frozen, unable to shift even a limb, under the dragon's gaze. 

"You must not take desperation for courage," he replied, pouring us both another mugful of mead. "Húor and you fought a Balrog, and prevailed. That was valor."

"Is what they say true? That you have foresight?" I asked in a hushed voice. Had he seen that my brother and I would come to him? Had he seen that I would be as captive under his gaze as I had been under the dragon's? 

"Would that I had," he said quietly, and there was no joy in his expressive eyes anymore. I loathed myself for having taken it away. It had been cruel and impulsive, knowing how many kinsmen of his had died in their wars. I was careless in speech and deed, and King Turgon had often chided me for it. 

"Once I thought that memories are warped, by our desires colouring how we wished to think of events and others and ourselves. None in Eru's creation can truly remember. What, then, I often wondered is the difference between a memory and a dream? Perhaps the make of Eru have the autonomy to warp their memories, consciously or subconsciously. However, dreams are more potent, aren't they? We have neither choice nor control over our dreams."

I could listen to him speak for hours on end and not tire of it. I cupped my head in my hands and leaned forward, keen. My brother and I had been educated well, in lore and war, in law and justice. We did not hold discourse so. King Turgon had mentioned once or twice that his cousins Maedhros and Finrod had been fond of verbal sparring, and that they had inherited their love of it from Fingolfin. 

"I apologise," he said hastily. "Chalk it up to my rustiness at hosting." 

"You are transformed when you speak of what moves you," I said frankly. 

I was not drunk enough to forget that my words were loose. I was drunk enough to be bold to speak them to him. He seemed at a loss upon hearing them, clearly coming short on formulaic responses to fall back upon. 

"Are you lonely here?" I asked, seeing anew the sight of him in his large fortress, in the baths he had built for entertaining a family that he had not seen in years. "You must be."

"I have a purpose." 

I thought of King Turgon living his days away as a wraith, upon meadows of lilies, with only the Eagles for company. _I have a purpose_ , he had said, when his daughter had chided him for his erratic presence at their court. Were they all so? Had they lost joy and hope, and was purpose all that remained? King Turgon was the loneliest man I knew. I understood then why Thorondor spent his summers in Himring and winters in Gondolin. I could fain separate from my brother for a week. We had been together, always, and it comforted my heart to know I had a companion in war and rule.

Maedhros sighed then, and rested his head on his palm, turning to look at the rain pattering on the baths once again. "My uncle wanted me to cremate him. I could not. I was here, striving to put together defenses, scrambling to relieve my brothers and cousins who had been routed by the Enemy. I wanted nothing more than to leave, to sail and beg the Gods, to cross the plains and surrender to the enemy, to _no longer be_ , for what was it all for if I could not even heed his last wish?"

Lore spoke only of his recklessness and courage in the Battle of the Sudden Flame. Lore had not spoken of his grief. 

"Perhaps I am lonely, as you say. There is little time to bemoan loneliness when I grieve those fallen, when I fear for those alive."

\---------

I received a letter from King Turgon the next afternoon. Nursing a mild headache after the night's libations, I had stayed in my quarters and attended to my correspondence. My brother was out and about with one of the warriors, intending to catch pike for supper. I had declined when he had invited me along, having little desire to traipse to the lakes in the rains. 

King Turgon wrote to me of his well-wishes. He enquired as to my welfare and that of my brother. He reminded me to cajole Maedhros into parting with two war chargers before Húor and I turned our paths home. I grinned at the pragmatic advice. We certainly intended to. Beasts their like I had not seen before.

_"Since you are one for plainness of speech, let me add that Húor wrote to me of your fascination for my cousin. While you have no fondness for being reminded of your youth, let me remind you once again. You are young, by the span of your people. Youth is unmarred by toils and resilient to change. My cousin has found his equanimity on his mountain, as I have on mine. It was nontrivial to attain, and I admire him for it. Do not perturb the calm he had painstakingly built for himself_." 

Infatuation. Fascination. Words that meant a passing fancy, superficial and easy to retire. 

\----------

It was the youth that King Turgon had none too gently reminded me of that took me to Thorondor's nest, in impulsiveness. High up in the mountain as the eyrie was, my dehydrated constitution did not enjoy the climb. I was grumpy when I arrived, soaked to the bones for I had forgotten my cloak, and my obstinacy strengthened. 

"Look who is here! Your handsome gift from your cousin," Thorondor announced, eyeing me suspiciously. 

"Whatever possessed you to come here without a cloak?" Maedhros exclaimed, from where he had been perched in the rock hold, merrily chatting with Thorondor.

He leapt to the ground, nimble and spry, and rushed to me, pausing only to undon his fine cloak so that he might offer it to me. "Here!"

"I am not a woman!" I protested, furious at the gesture. 

He raised his hand in truce and stepped back, withdrawing his cloak. 

"I know," he said calmly. "I meant only to see to your welfare. I am your host."

Thorondor let out a sharp trill of amusement and flew off. Maedhros looked at his retreating form in surprise. 

"I did not mean to interrupt your conversation," I said then, remorseful. 

"Would you come into the shelter of the overhang?" He suggested, peering up at the storm clouds. I hesitated, ruffled by his concerns that betrayed his lack of faith in my constitution. Then I noticed that he was trembling in the cold. Alarmed, I caught him by the wrist and dragged us both into the shelter of the rock overhang. 

"Thank you," he murmured, returning to his perch, wringing his hair dry. I picked up his cloak and wrapped it about him once more. I took his hand in mine and rubbed some heat into his fingers. 

"Minor legacies of my stint in my neighbor's realm," he said cursorily, when I began to voice the question about his poor tolerance of the cold. His voice was shaking too. Worried that he was lapsing into hypothermia, I swung myself about so that I could enfold him in my arms, his back to my front. He was trembling. I was grasping desperately for ideas. We had no firewood or flint. What could we do? 

"What can I do?" I asked him, fretting. 

"Húrin, it shall be fine. I have endured worse," he said gently, trying to rise and shift away. I held him tight, his words having given me little confidence.

"When will Thorondor return?"

"He went to hunt. In the morning. They hunt during the nights." His words were stilted and his breath uneven. 

"Don't fall asleep," I cautioned him. Sleep reduced the body's resistance to the cold, I had been taught. 

He did not reply. 

At my wit's end, I dragged us both to the uneven ground, and lay him down, covering him from the winds with my body. 

"Let me warm you," I told him, stripping to my breeches and boots. His response was faint, but I flushed under the curiosity of his gaze as it swept over my chest and abdomen. He may not have seen one of the Edain before, I told myself sharply. Many in Turgon's land had looked at me in curiosity. 

When I made to strip him of his wet woolen robes, I cursed at the clamminess of his skin. 

"It shall be fine," he muttered, exhaling tiredly. "I indulged in the mead more than I ought to have, yesterday night. My blood is lethargic as a result, and it slows my recovery from the cold. There is nothing to worry over."

"Let me be the judge of that," I told him in asperity, at his lack of care for himself that was evident once again. He put up no more protests when I lay beside him and took him into my arms, and covered us both with his cloak. His hand came curious to linger over my skin, over the large pockmarks on my chest from the pox that had once run as wildfire through our town. I had been six. They had had to tie me to bed so that I would not pick at the scabs until they were healed over. 

"Pox," I told him. "The body breaks into pustules, fever rages, and then the recovery begins. Outbreaks are common during the summer among the children. It can be fatal to the newborn."

"What causes it?" 

I shrugged.

His fingers moved to the right, lingering an inch over my skin, tracing the path of a scar that wrapped about my vertebrae.

"A scythe," I explained. "The orcs in the south favor it." 

The weapons they brandished were improvised from stolen scraps they had looted from corpses or from the farms they harried. These weapons did not allow for clean kills, particularly when wielded by the inexperienced or the unskilled, which most orcs were. The orcs I had encountered in the north had been armed by Angband's forges with weapons. 

I had expected him to be fascinated by the hair, as many of Turgon's warriors had been, when they had seen me stripped to the waist when sparring. I smiled at how his hair curled as it dried, tracking red over my skin, with a mind of its own despite his impatient hand shoving it out of his face. 

Petrichor. He smelled of petrichor. I clasped his hand in mine and placed them on my chest, bringing my spare hand to rest over his shoulders.

"Sleep awhile," I told him. "I will wake you when the rain lets up."

\--------  
  
His skin had warmed in sleep, and his eyes seemed more lucid when he woke, much to my relief. 

"It is raining."

He smiled at that observation, and I noticed how the corners of his eyes and mouth crinkled so. With the winds and the rain, and the warmth of his skin against mine under his cloak, there was surreality; it must be why I thumbed the wrinkles at the edge of his mouth.

"Laugh lines," I explained. "I have seen few of your kind bear them before." 

"I am told that I have had them from when I had been midway through adolescence," he said, blinking slow as he woke. "I was gangly limbs and shy of my turning voice, my hair was auburn as my mother's, and I was given to laughter thanks to my family's wit and antics." 

I tried to imagine him as he must have been then. He must have worn blue. He must have perched on the window seats and the desks as he helped his uncle tend to their administration and rule. He must have been learning tricks on horseback striving to impress his brothers and cousins. I scrutinized a curl of his hair closely in the dim light, and saw no shade of brown in it. 

"It turned in texture and color during my time in Angband," he murmured. "I had hoped it would be restored, with time. Vanity, as my cousin Artanis would call it."

"I have never seen the like of it before." I hesitated before continuing. "I have never seen the like of you before."

His smile was bright, though it wavered when I shifted my hand from his hair to his cheek. The crisis was past, and I registered then we were entangled underneath his cloak, skin to skin, but for my breeches. I had perspired greatly, and I winced when I smelled my sweat on his skin, embarrassed.

"My kind...the Edain, we sweat," I said roughly, unable to meet his gaze, shifting away from him so that I might spare him the odor. 

"I know," he said quietly, bringing his hand to my chest once again, splaying his fingers across my sternum, upon the thick and coarse mat of hair there. 

I wondered if I could ask.

He began speaking, before I blurted out my questions. "Valar, Maiar, Dwarf and Elf, and Edain. Orc and balrog, dragon and warg. I am familiar with the shape and make of them intimately. The enemy had me for years. I know that the Edain sweat." He patted my chest awkwardly when he saw the expression on my face. "After mere days, I began to agree to several acts of depravity, willingly, for it spared children. There was a Dwarf child of four or five, and the cruelty of what was done to her ended my resistance." 

In impulse, I made to shift away again, frightened that I might have brought to the fore terrible memories again of the Edain that had touched him and harmed him. 

"You are kind," he said. "The events occurred a long time ago. I am used to the tales being referenced implicitly and explicitly by allies and vassals, by campfire and hearthfire. If I were to tremble and quiver each time someone alluded to it, I would have expired in paroxysms."

For the first time, I understood why bards and loremasters waxed on eloquent about the color of his eyes. In the pouring night, the only light I saw was the luminance of moonshine that dappled through rainclouds reflected in the sparkle of his gaze. 

"They put to death the rescued thralls," I confessed. 

"Death is a mercy to many," he told me. "I have given the mercy of a clean death to many rescued thralls who sought an ending."

"How can we know?" I asked, having spent nights worrying about this. "How can we know that we act in justice and mercy? What if they are not in their right mind when asking for death?"

"The duty of a ruler is not purely to uphold unambiguous verdicts of justice. Indeed, the duty of a ruler is to provide justice even in ambiguity and to know that with the dispensation of this justice also comes absolute responsibility." 

How could my father sleep peacefully at night knowing that on his conscience rested the killing of many thralls? " _Youth and its idealism_ ," he had been fond of telling me when I expressed outrage. 

"You must think me naive," I told Maedhros. "In years, in wisdom, in experience." 

"Your state of youth merits no shame," he replied kindly. "I have not found you naive. Indeed, your perception and empathy astonish me often." 

That perception had not turned inward easily. I had held him, even if it had been for seeing to his safety and health. I had touched his skin and hair. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to see him nude in the moonlight, in his bed, in rain and sun and snow. 

In the tales my brother and I had heard in our father's great hall, the man would lean in and kiss the maid bold. She would blush and shy away, and he would give chase for she wanted to be caught. These tales gave me little knowledge of how to kiss a man in my arms, older than me, mythified in yarn and song of ally and foe. As dearly as I wished to be bold and to surprise him, I knew I could not. He had chosen celibacy. He was reserved by nature, and warier still whenever he was in close proximity of anyone who was not kin. Even if he were inclined to allow me, was it done? Was it taboo? Men who lusted for each other, did they caress and kiss too? I was afraid to ask. 

"You are burdened."

I pressed my hand once again upon his cheek, and confessed, "I wish I could kiss you." 

His cheek flushed under my skin. I laughed wildly, nervous and frightened, until he hushed me with a kiss. It was a delicate thing, and yet sure, in how he rose over me, curled his fingers against my nape, and pressed his lips to mine. His smile dug hooks into my gut, when it scraped against my stubble. I came to hold his waist, grabbing as a falling man to a precipice, afraid to ease my grip. His breath stuttered and he pressed his face into my neck, overwhelmed. I hastily loosened my grip.

"Did I hurt you? I did not mean to! I have not done this before, any of it!" 

He did not reply for a long moment, and his heart rate was erratic against mine. 

"No, you have not harmed me at all. A slower pace, perhaps," he murmured. "It has been a very long time. We should return to the fortress now. My guard will be worried."

"Yes," I said dumbly, wondering if he was being kind in how he ended it before it began. 

\----------------

"It was foolish. I was foolish."

"You are fretting over a trifle," my brother said, yawning, as he tossed about on his cot trying to return to the sleep I had rudely woken him from. "He held his own against a dragon. You are intimidating, and I commend you for it, but you are not a fire-breathing monster of malice with sorcery that can hold men frozen by its gaze."

I threw up my hands in the air at Húor's nonchalance, and made my way to the sparring grounds to exert myself to exhaustion. 

It must have been hours, and I had sparred with a few of the warriors. 

"Another round?" Menor, the commander of the household guard, asked me. I nodded, grinning savagely. 

He was one of my favorite opponents. He gave no quarter and made no assumptions about the endurance of the Edain. He fought me as he sparred with one of his own kind. Glorfindel of Gondolin had often humored my brother and I in the practice arenas, but we knew that he had ever held back, concerned that he might injure us. 

The hustle about us quieted then. Menor's eyes lit up. I turned about to find the cause. 

"Prince Nelyafinwë! It is an honor to see you at the arenas again."

"I apologise for my absence of late," Maedhros replied, finding himself a spot to lean against the fence. 

The rain had let up and it was a rare sunny morning. In day's light, his hair was as crimson as the rich earth he stood upon, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw the spunsilk blue tunic he wore, with its buttons of black pearl. There were threads of silver woven through. Whoever had made it for him had known him well, for it brought out the wistfulness in his eyes that was concealed by his usual raiment of blacks and greys. I could not bear to meet his gaze, so I let my eyes descend, and I swallowed at the lambskin riding trousers he wore.

Well formed, they had named him. I had not been drawn to his form before, though I had noted it in abstract. His folk were known to be handsome, for Eru had made them so. I realized finally why even amongst them, he was considered well-formed. I had seen him arrayed so on horseback, but he had been a warrior then, armored and helmed, bloodied and exhausted. It was a prince who watched me as I lifted my sword to my opponent. 

"A wager on the winner, Prince?" One of the warriors called out. 

"You win the wager whenever I play," Maedhros complained. "Very well then! I wager that Húrin shall lose." 

I was furious. His eyes were mirthful as he saw my anger. 

"And if I lose?" Menor asked, laughing. "What forfeit am I to spare you from?"

"One of Húrin's choice, for it is his skill I have insulted," Maedhros offered easily. 

Incandescent at his gall to question my mettle in sparring, I bowed to my opponent and tried to forget who stood watching me. The sun beat down upon us mercilessly, as we clattered sword to sword, again and again, spinning and whirling about. We were used to each other's techniques. He preempted my attempts to use my smaller stature to duck beneath his span. I leapt away when he strove to bring me to my knees with the spinning thrust he favored. I was used to battlelust coloring these engagements. I was used to the pound of blood in my ears as I pushed brain and body to prevail over another, to smite them down, to spill their blood and to prove myself worthier. This was the first time in my life when the battlelust was superseded by lust of another kind. Whenever I turned east, I saw the inflictor of this cruelty, as he stood there merry, chatting away with his warriors. Even when I had sparred in my father's courtyard, while maids giggled and wagered, I had not been affected by their wiles. 

Menor snuck under my guard, and I barely parried before first blood. I had lost ground and form. He pressed forward, seizing his advantage. Sweat dripped into my eyes and ears, my clothes clung to my skin, and the sunlight glinted sharp off our swords as we began the final dance. The cheering and the heckling from the audience ended, as they watched with bated breath. 

I let Glorfindel's teachings wash over me, wiping all from my mind, but the synchrony of form and motion. As blinders on a horse, my vision narrowed to the immediate, to my opponent and the ground about us. His boots were less treaded than mine. The ground was muddy from the incessant rain. His footing was sure and posed him little disadvantage. If I could disturb his footing, I knew that I might exploit the tread. 

I feinted. He seemed bewildered by the useless move, but he met me. Again and again, I feinted, until his composure betrayed his confusion. There was a disconnect between his form and motion. It was not an opening yet in his defenses, but it would be, and I kept on, until he landed a few inches north of where he had meant to after a parry. I seized the advantage, curling myself and threw myself slanted upon him, and used the momentum to veer away as he fell. I landed on my feet and swerved about to place my sword at his throat, drawing first blood. 

"I yield!" He exclaimed, laughing. I helped him up, and we embraced each other in good spirits. "How was I to know that you would transform from a warrior to a ragamuffin?" He teased me. 

The warriors were cheering us both. I did not dare to turn about, but I forced myself to. Maedhros was still in conversation with some of his soldiers, illustrating something or the other with an expressive hand waving about in the air. 

"Ah!" He exclaimed, when he saw me. "Well, my victor, what shall you have of me as forfeit?" The mirth had not left his eyes. "Perhaps we shall discuss the matter over supper? Would you accompany me to the fortress? I have malingered here and absconded from my duties long enough. My family shall be most displeased if I delay the couriers."

"When is Prince Macalaurë returning?" Menor asked. 

"He is to stay a while longer with our brother, Carnistro," Maedhros answered. There was a soft care in his words. "I asked him to wait until the dragons are returned to their roost." 

"Does he know of what transpired on the Great Dwarf Road?"

"No, and we shall ensure he does not!" Maedhros entreated. "I would not have a moment's peace from my family if they hear of it. Would you rather that I was ported away to a turret where they would take turns guarding me?" 

"I suppose we can acknowledge a degree of fondness for your eccentricities, my Prince!" Menor said, rousing laughter among the warriors. "We shall abet you in this dastardly conspiracy and keep your secrets." 

Maedhros bowed to them with extravagant flourish, to rousing cheer. 

They loved him though they did not understand him. What but love could command men to their doom?  
  
\-------------

I walked back with him, acutely cognizant of the state I was in, with my clothes clinging to my skin, with matted hair plastered by sweat, with aching limbs and tired mind, and unable to hide from my expression how aroused and infuriated by his play I was. 

"I shan't mind wagering on your loss again," he said then brightly. 

Frustrated, and lacking words, I turned to scowl at him, and cursed when I saw him, arrayed in his fine clothes and resplendent in the sun. He stood on wildflowers, for the hillside was dotted by spring's early grace. Against a sky of blue, on a bed of swaying white, he was everything I wanted then. My hands trembled as I endeavored not to touch. 

"What shall my forfeit be?" He asked quietly. 

And then I realized why he had undertaken such measures. He did not know to ask. I had blamed myself for my naivety. And in my angst, I had forgotten his reserve. 

I seized him in a hasty embrace and pulled him in for a desperate kiss. He met me with passion, though he was shaking in my hold. When I leaned back to look at him, he was a sight I engraved in my heart. There were my thumbprints on his cheeks, marked by the red mud I had fallen in many a time. _Anointed_ by my hands, I thought fiercely, possessive. 

"I will ruin your finery." 

"I shall expect you to," he admitted. 

The confession shook me. Emboldened, I told him, "No, the tunic becomes you. Blue becomes you. I have half a mind to burn the blacks and the greys of your wardrobe."

He clasped my hand in his, and said, "I have not worn blue since my grandfather's murder." 

I reeled to find my moorings as the magnitude of his words struck me. 

"I am lonely," he admitted then. "However, I have been for many lifetimes of the Edain before you came along."

And I heard what he had not said explicitly. He _wanted_ me. I curled my fingers about his and led him back to the path to the fortress. 

"Yes," I replied, as he tensed at the lack of my reaction to his confession. "Yes, I want you."

We walked in silence, and he smiled self-consciously when he caught me staring at him ever so often. 

"I am not used to it," he apologized. 

"I have seen others stare at you, even when you were in armor and drab blacks," I said wryly. "You are very pleasing to the eye, you know." He looked alarmed. I laughed and watched him struggle to regain his composure. 

As we rounded the final corner of the path, I saw the gates of Angband, and beyond, the dragons circling the volcanoes. Forges and geysers spewed dust and lava into the air, and overhead rainclouds were thickening once again. I stopped to watch that grim, dark place. He came to stand beside me as we beheld the enemy's realm. 

"My brother cannot see them. Neither can your warriors." 

"You will not like my answer," he said quietly. "There is fate on your brow, Húrin. And you see what you shall know." 

"I will meet the dragons in battle again?" I asked, frightened, and yet curious. "My brother and I ride to war together. Why can't he see then? Why-" 

"No, no," he cut in, solemn of face and compassionate. "You must not wonder so. It will ail you."

"It is true, then, what they say of you?" I had considered fate and foresight to be lunacy. I still did, I told myself. It was only that he seemed to use these concepts to explain the curious phenomenon of what I could see and my brother could not, when we beheld the same place. 

"If I had, do you think that I might not have acted to prevent many of the tragedies that befell my family?" he asked plainly. "Come away, now, please. We are not Gods. These matters are beyond our ken." 

It was the truth, and yet it stung. I wished to know why the Gods had made the world as it was, why my people struggled and were slaughtered, why the Enemy was allowed to thrive by the Gods across the Sea we prayed in vain to. What was the reward of piety? 

"They are family," Maedhros said, cutting into my thoughts easily. 

The enemy was Manwë's brother. How does one slaughter a brother, even in righteousness to dispense justice? So, caught between them, was the rest of Eru's creations. We prayed for kinslaying. We prayed in vain. 

I swallowed, and forcibly turned my thoughts away, to the present, where Maedhros had led me to his quarters. 

His rooms were decorated in blue and white. There were no paintings of his family or of the lands across the sea, in his fortress, unlike King Turgon's palace. That remained so in his private chambers too. There were sculptures from Nogrod, and fine-hewn wooden furniture that bore the mark of Doriath. There was metal-work from the smiths of Nargothrond and delicate glass from the artisans of Nevrast. The damasks and beddings bore the mark of the looms of my people, in Dor-lómin. 

"Is there nothing from your homeland?" I asked, curious at the contrast to King Turgon's preferences. There were no books or scrolls in his private quarters. 

"Arda is my homeland," he said. "I have retained a few possessions from Valinor. Gifts of clothing from my mother and my uncle who rules in Tirion now, and from my aunts who remained behind. A dagger my grandfather had given me. My father had wrought my sword, but it fell into the hands of the enemy. The sword I bear now is my uncle's, wrought by my father; it was the first and the last craft of his in Arda, and he left it in my brother's care for my uncle was still on the Ice." 

He was talkative, I realized, when his reserve was set aside. I could imagine him in his youth, with his uncle, chatting away as they worked together. I was jealous that I had not known him then. I shook aside the fancifulness of my heart, and roughly dragged him to his bed. He had not been expecting my grab, and it was a joy to see his sharp surprise. 

"May I manhandle you?" I teased him, as he gasped when he hit the bedding. There was color high on his cheeks, and warmth in his eyes as he nodded assent. 

There were dots of red on the skin of his face, about his mouth, from the friction of my stubble.

"I should shave," I muttered, running my thumb about the beard burn. 

"No," he ordered sharply, and then groaned in embarrassment when my eyebrows rose in surprise. 

"You are very strange," I noted, bending to run my stubbled cheek over the back of his hand, delighting in his gasps. 

"The women of the Edain and of the Naugrim claim to like it too," he muttered. "It is hardly an eccentricity." 

I wondered if that was true. It must be. There were many bearded men who had managed to keep their wives.

"You are not a woman of the Edain, or of the Naugrim, are you?" I asked, wanting to feel the flush of his skin under my mouth. I dragged him into the middle of the bed, and he clung to me with startled laughter. 

Perhaps those tales in my father's hall of fire had not been for naught. I chased his coy mouth for kisses, chaste at first, and then lewd in honest desire. I wondered if I was a decent kisser, even as I shifted from his mouth to cheek to forehead to ear to throat. His tunic was high of collar. I pressed my wet mouth over the apple of his throat, through the silk, and felt him swallow. It was obscene and intimate. I grazed my teeth over the pearl button and he inhaled sharply. Daring more, emboldened by his reactions, I pressed my body upon his for the first time, and my world yawed once more that day, as I felt the press of his hips and pelvis and groin against mine. I stilled, worried that I might disappoint him with my inexperience. Then I felt him tense, and I knew I had to be bold. I slithered down the bedding, until I was at the level of his waist, and shoved his tunic up, to tug the laces of his breeches roughly, and then to drag them off him in one swift, sure move.

He was lovely, from toe to knee, from calf to thigh. I hooked my thumb into his navel and tugged once in mischief, and he buried his head in his arm's crook, overwhelmed. Impulsively, I ran a cheek down the protuberance of his groin through loincloth, and he jerked helplessly under me, hoarse of voice and raw. When I moved away, there were a drop of desire on the cotton. The obscenity of it against the luxury of his chambers and the fine tunic that clothed him was kindling to my nerves, and I closed my eyes to ground myself once more, to hold myself from spilling.   
  
When I opened my eyes, he was watching me with a soft grin. Before I could act, he sat up swift and pushed me to my back, straddling me to kiss me deep. It was the filthiest kiss still, as he coyly drew my tongue into his mouth with his own, and I spilled between our hips when he sucked long on my tongue. 

I cursed myself, though my mind was too tired to work myself into recriminations. 

"Youth is no shame," he promised me, moving away, and laughing when I caught him by his hips to keep him straddled on me. 

"I wish to bring you relief," I asked, unsure, suddenly shy. 

"I am not done with you," he said sweetly. 

Men took cocks in their arses. Some, I had even heard, would put their mouths on cock. I did not know which he preferred. Did it matter? I knew not how to go about either. 

He hummed and reached across to grab a dagger from my discarded boots. I pinched his hips for the thievery, but he winked at me, the cocky bastard that he was. 

"What do you need that for?" I asked, curious. 

"Oh, I have heard that you are handy with a dagger," he suggested, placing it hilt first on my chest, daring me.

It was as the wager on the sparring. I was beginning to see through his foils when it came to this. 

"I am happy to be of service," I said cheerfully, laughing at his abashment. "You are truly eccentric!" 

"I shall have you know that many-"

I tugged him to me and kissed him quiet. When he relaxed, I caught his tunic by the collar and rolled us about, until I was above him, and used my bare hands to rip his tunic along its neat column of pearl buttons. 

Panic flashed through his eyes, but his arousal was stronger still, and his panic receded into curiosity. He was used to getting his way, by ensuring that the odds were stacked in his favor. Every loss he orchestrated was a feint for something he wanted. It had been so on the sparring field. It had been so on the meadow. It was the same with the dagger. He orchestrated outcomes. Was that what he wished for? If so, why would he respond so joyfully whenever I surprised him? I wished I had more experience in the bower. I wished I had loved before. He was difficult to read, even if I wanted to please him. 

"You will have what you ask for," I promised him, watching the lovely sight of him, half bare and in shred finery. I tracked my hand down his sternum, watching goosebumps erupt in its wake, on skin contrasted sharp against the blue and silver of his tunic. "You will have what you ask for, but I want to decide the means."

I had asked him for something more significant than mere passion then, I knew, when I saw the confusion in his eyes clearing to wariness. 

"As you wish," he replied quietly. I had not seen vulnerability in him before, not even when facing the dragon. It rekindled my arousal rapidly. 

"No," I corrected him, lifting him to drag the torn tunic away from his torso. "As _you_ wish. Now teach me what you enjoy."

He brought his hand to my shirt and tugged at it, demanding. I grinned and hastily lifted it over my head and threw it away. The loincloth that protected his modesty still was damp in the front and I placed my hand there. When I brought it to my nose to smell, he groaned, embarrassed and aroused. 

"Petrichor," I murmured. 

"You accused me of eccentricities," he retorted, shaking his head and turning his attention to my breeches, fiddling with the laces. I shoved my breeches off and my small clothes too, leaving me bare to him. When he stilled, I fretted, uncertain. Nobody had seen me before, in an episode of carnality. I blushed remembering the time or two during puberty when my brother had nearly walked into my chamber when I had been indulging in masturbation. 

"You are hirsute," he said softly. I blushed again. His hand was bold as it came to trail the line of hair from my navel to my groin. The spill of ejaculate from earlier soiled his fingers. 

"I could shave," I offered again, ashamed of my untended state. 

He grasped my cock and directed me close with that grip. The sordidness of the gesture sent me reeling. When I was prone on him again, his palm shifted to my arse and squeezed. 

"Perhaps frottage?" He asked. 

I nodded. I did not know what it meant, but everything would be new to me, so what did it matter? 

He made to remove his loincloth, but I clutched his hand. I knew what I wanted. 

"I want you to spill inside the cloth," I demanded. 

"You have a filthy mind," he noted, but guided me patiently to thrust my hips against his, with cocks brushing each other through the barrier of cotton. 

So this was frottage. I was easily carried away by the eroticism. When I clutched his shoulders and began erratically thrusting with force, he closed his eyes and tipped his head back. I exulted in watching his control fall away with every thrust, until he was entreating me in broken words as I nipped and kissed the exposed planes of his throat and jaw. He came with a soft, hastily-stifled cry, eyes clenched shut. I followed him, falling into his trembling, lax body with abandon. His heartbeat against my cheek was erratic. I dragged myself off him to stare at the lovely splay of him, sated and supine. With intent, I set about to unwrapping his loincloth. He was limbless and loose, and did nothing to aid or hinder me. 

"Your cock is as well formed as the rest of you," I told him, petting the softness of it, taking into my hand and shaking it once, as I would shake hands with a new acquaintance. Then I blushed at the silliness of it. 

He laughed, startled. "Were your wits spilled in your spend?" 

He noticed then I was truly at a loss as to what to do after our interlude. His smile gentled and he threw a leg companionably over my lap, wiggling his toes into the hair on my groin. Eased by his acceptance, I returned to realizing my fantasy.   
  
"Petrichor," I noted, bringing the cloth to my nose. Tempted, I licked the fabric, and sighed at the musk that overwhelmed my senses. My arousal returned. 

"I am flattered," Maedhros murmured, watching me keenly. "I wonder if it might be corrupting the youth should I make a scandalous suggestion."

"Tell me!" I demanded, excited at the thought of discovering more ways to seek pleasure together. 

"You should refuse if you are uncomfortable," he told me seriously.

"Tell me." 

"Wrap it about your cock and pull yourself to climax." He had barely finished speaking when I acted to comply hastily, wrapping the cloth about my cock and starting to masturbate. He laughed at my eagerness, and said quietly, "Straddle me and spread your thighs wide, Húrin. I would like to watch you."

His hand came to curl about my thigh, and I gasped when his grip tightened on my flesh. 

"Rougher," he exhorted. "You can handle it." 

I had rarely committed self-abuse with a rough hand. I obeyed him, and the passion in his gaze undid me. I spilled into the cloth with his name on my breath. 

"Smell it now."

"Petrichor," I said truthfully, after I followed his order. "You overwhelm me, everywhere, in every sense."

\-----------

Later, as he stirred himself from our interlude, I watched his nude, graceful form in the sunset.

"Did it harm you?" I asked softly. "When you ceded control to me, when you stopped trying to predict?"

"No," he replied. He sighed, bending over to smooth my hair away from my forehead. "You were kind and good. I hesitate to cede control. I desire it too."

"You are eccentric," I told him fondly. He did not seem inclined to elucidate further. He had already spoken more of his preferences in intimacy than I had expected. It was time to change the subject. "You enjoy telling me what to do." 

"Yes," he allowed, kissing me softly before leaving the bed to dress himself in fresh small clothes and robes. 

"You wore the loincloth for me."

"I suspected you might enjoy the quaintness of it."

"Why?"

"Your attraction, I assumed, was rooted in our differences. I wished to provide you a contrast to norms." 

He had thoughtfully calculated all of it; the tunic he would wear, the lambskin breeches, and even his undergarments. He had staged a wager to ensure that I would fall where he wanted, into his bed, into his arms. I could not bring myself to be angry. It was a declaration of interest, even if an unorthodox one. 

"You are utterly mad," I told him affectionately.   
  
\------------------

"A maid?" Húor asked, as we sat down for supper. 

Our host had sent his apologies that he was absorbed in his duties. I suspected he was running late on his schedule, given our activities of earlier. For someone who had orchestrated every detail of our interlude, he had lost track of time. I took smug pride in that. 

"A man?" Húor asked, scandalized, when I ducked to attend to my food. 

In the morning, I had wondered if men who took pleasure with their own gender caressed and kissed. I had found my wonderings answered, though I wryly mused that Maedhros might be an outlier. I could still smell petrichor on my fingers.   
  
" _Him_?" My brother demanded. "Húrin, you must cease the folly! Find a no name warrior. Find a maid or two. Find a stable boy."

"It was only the once," I said defensively. "It cannot harm."

"You know the lore as I do." Húor pointed his fork at me. "Their family is cursed. Mandos's prophecy chases them to their deaths. Their fate is to die alone, after beholding the ruin the works of their hands, and the deaths of their beloveds. They are condemned to the Void until the breaking of the world!" 

I knew. Everyone knew. The doom of Finwë. The jewels that crowned Morgoth. Grief and betrayal dogged their footsteps. Fingolfin had been mad, raving, when he had faced Morgoth in single combat. Feanor had been mad, when he had slain his kinsmen, when he had sworn his oath, when he had burned the ships, when he had led his army to massacre. Maedhros, they said, was madder than the rest of his family. Who returned from Angband intact? They said that it was only the kindness of his family that had seen him restored to health, that had seen him entrusted with a realm of his own. 

"Húrin."

"It was a tryst!" I insisted. 

Húor said nothing more, though the stern press of his mouth betrayed his condemnation.

After supper, he retired to his quarters. I went to the kitchens, and fetched an apple and a glass of buffalo milk. 

I found him on the ramparts, with one of his architects, immersed in debate. 

"Húrin!" Maedhros greeted me, when he saw me approach. He eyed the buffalo milk and the apple with mild curiosity, before turning to his architect again. 

"Húrin fought the dragons on the plains." 

"We are discussing the defenses of the fortress, my lord," the architect informed me. "Would you have any insights that might assist me in planning the changes necessary to defend the keep from these beasts?" 

Nobody had asked me to plan defense before. I had ridden with my brother many a time to skirmishes. I had little idea of what it took to defend a keep. Maedhros and his architect were waiting patiently. I swallowed at how they treated me as an equal.

"You have many roofless terraces within the keep," I blurted out, thinking about the baths. "Perhaps those ought to be sealed."

"Indeed!" The architect crowed, turning to glare at Maedhros. It must have been a fiercely debated point. 

"Oh, allow me my vices!" Maedhros complained. 

The architect said thoughtfully, "I mean to consult Prince Macalaurë too. After all, he leads the warriors when he is here." 

"He leads them on offensives," Maedhros pointed out grumpily. 

"During the Battle of the Sudden Flame, he retreated here and assumed charge of the defenses." 

Maedhros sighed. He would cede, I knew. He seemed to ever cede when his brother's name was invoked. Most of his household ruthlessly exploited the fact, even if to see to his safety and wellbeing. 

"Are there mechanisms to bar and seal the terraces during a siege so that none may enter through them into the corridors of the keep?" I interceded. "Gondolin's doors are sealed so, aren't they?"

The architect sent me a wry grin, and took his leave, muttering that he would return in a few days with his recommendations. Maedhros sighed and rubbed his brow in frustration, turning to gaze at Angband where glowed coal and fire in the night. 

"I wish I could not see," I confessed. 

"I wish you had never seen," he offered kindly. 

"I hope it may console you that you are not the only one anymore. Let us look at the bright side." 

He was startled and touched by the statement. 

"Men have called me mad for a very long time," he said solemnly. "They will, evermore. I cannot say that I mind. However, I must confess that I am grateful that my sight of one is ended. I had not known what loneliness had meant until you came to free me of it." 

I knew not what to say. To busy myself with the trivial, I offered him the glass of buffalo milk. He raised it in salute to me and drank it down. I watched the working of his throat in ardency. 

"You must not," he chided me.

"I will!" I retorted, delighting in my obstinacy and playfulness. The line of milk above his lip made me wish to shove him against the nearest rampart. Surely frottage could be accomplished vertically too. 

He leaned to kiss me soundly, on the ramparts of his castle, and I put up with the taste of buffalo milk in his mouth for underneath it lay his own. The face I made when I retreated made him laugh. 

"However can you stomach it?"

"Oh, you know what they say about my ability to endure," he said brightly, laughing again when I scowled at his silly wit. 

How fascinating, I mused, that a man so reserved could be bold enough to kiss me before his guards, on the ramparts of his fort! He feared no betrayal from his household. Was that gullibility? The enemy had many ways to seek his secrets. Allies too had their spies, doubtlessly, to monitor his sanity. What emboldened him to be reckless then? 

He exchanged the apple for the glass, and took a crisp bite, before offering it to me. 

It began raining then. In the distance, the enemy worked his forges and his dragons roved about the giant volcanoes. I saw what the man beside me saw, and I was glad for it, even it meant that doom rode on my brow. I could not erase his fate, but I could ease his loneliness awhile. 

The grey of my companion's eyes blazed white when lightning cracked through the clouds. As the first drops brought forth anew the smell of petrichor on his realm, I held his gaze, and took a bite of his apple. 

\----------

  
Carnality had become all-consuming to me, and I daydreamed of the next interlude when we were parted. My libido surpassed his. He insisted on seeing me sated, in new and creative ways each time, none of which had yet included buggery. I was curious about buggery, but I hesitated to broach it. His sexual preferences, while I was beginning to learn the contours of them, were yet a mystery to me. 

Cavorting with him changed me rapidly. I began to take an interest in ruling. In the beginning, I learned his routine so that I might know when to find him in his quarters. Then curiosity took hold of me, and I began asking him of what had transpired in his day, in the aftermath of interludes.

He was engaging in narration. He would speak of the matter of the buffaloes and the insulation in their barns. He would tell me about his concerns about a pestilence that was ravaging the wines to the north. He would recount the harsh justice he had to hand a thief who had also saved an old woman from drowning. He had strong opinions on the violence given by a man unto his wife. 

"It is his wife," I said, trying to fathom his condemnation. "She belongs to him, for him to protect from harm, and in return she gives him womb and loyalty."

"Who shall protect her from him?" 

I had not thought of that before. We discussed and debated into the early hours of the morning. 

It enlivened him each time I sought to know more of his duties, each time I sought to offer my opinions. My insecurities slowly eased as I began to recognize he weighed my words as he ranked those of his long-serving advisors, and it was not unusual to find us conversing during the day.

  
\-------

My brother valiantly held his silence on the matter. Others were not as prudent. 

The maids giggled and commented on my looks that had enticed the prince. They compared me to Glorfindel, who they claimed had been once notorious for many dalliances in his youth. 

"Your company has cheered him," Menor said, as we walked back after a session of sparring one afternoon.

"He is cheerful about the nearing of his brother's return," I demurred. 

"Oh, they have held each other dear. Our prince came to Manwë, with tidings of the old King's murder. The Valar were cruel to him. We watched him weeping, but we were afraid of the Valar to intercede for him. Macalaurë defied them to go to his brother. When Findekáno brought him back, Macalaurë nursed him through night and day, for months, for years, to health. We were, every one of us, surprised that he chose to marry. Perhaps he considered it his duty to produce an heir for the line of the High Kings. Findekáno beds only whores, Turkáno is widowed, Findaráto died childless, and Atarinke's son foreswore their line."

"Prince Maedhros could wed," I said, and wondered why the thought turned my gut queasy. It was the duty of a ruler to wed. He was a dutiful ruler. 

"After he was brought back, he swore that he would neither take a wife nor father children." Menor hesitated. "They say that there was a woman in the enemy's keep. He called to her in his nightmares for years, and his brother nursed him through it all." 

I doubted if it had a kernel of truth. It was in the nature of men to wonder about the romance of captivity, in a desperate bid to find an inkling of hope in a tragedy. _At least, there was love_ , they could then sigh. As obsessive as I was in watching Maedhros, I had seen him glance at the occasional warrior with a flicker of curiosity, but I had never seen him glance at a woman so. 

"Is his brother as him?" I asked, returning to the subject I was curious about. 

"His brother resembles their father, in form, in temperament, in mannerisms. He is selfish, as was his father. As Finwë and Fëanáro and Findekáno, he clings to his family and loves them above all, and the rest of the world is of little import to him. Nolofinwë, whom you call the High-King Fingolfin, and the Prince were the only true rulers among them. Finwë's rule was unchallenged because of how Nolofinwë and the Prince ruled together in his name." 

"You know their family well." 

"I served Nolofinwë until his death. I watched him fall to Morgoth's blade. I fetched his sword from the battlefield and was despatched to Himring by Findekáno. _Maitimo and my father knew that the rule of Arda passes through the sword, as the rule of Valinor passed through the crown. Tell my cousin that I have claimed the crown as my father and he deeded in their charade. Tell my cousin that I send my father's sword to him, to hold him to the promise he made our people to lead them safely from the wrath of the Valar. Tell my cousin that my father died to avenge him._ I rode while the battles raged still. I had expected to find the prince insane, in this desolation. I feared that Morgoth would have overran his lands due to the weakness of his rule. I arrived here to find him leading his army out to the Pass of Aglon, to clear it for his brother's retreat. After the pass was cleared, he ordered the army to return to Himring to bolster the defenses, and then took a small contingent to ride hard through the Dorthonion to face the dragon, so that he might buy time for his brother to reach his fortress safely. Macalaurë arrived and raised the defenses. His defenses held. I told the Prince of his uncle's death after he had returned from the battles. He was stricken, and yet mustered the graciousness to thank me for the danger I had braved to bring him the tidings and his uncle's sword. It was then that I swore my sword to him." 

"Do you think it is true that he has foresight?" 

"Lord Salgant and Lord Ecthelion woke by the Cuivenien. They knew the prince's grandmother, and they held that she possessed foresight. She saw the doom that would hunt her family to the void, and laid down her life in the gardens of Irmo."

The first suicide. 

Had she brought about the fate of her family by her act? If she had lived, would they have come to a different fate? Maedhros had asked me to cease wondering about fate's mysteries. How did he control his mind's wanderings?

\--------

One rainy night, as we made to retire after supper, a courier entered. 

"Macalaurë is well?" Maedhros asked, rising in alarm. 

"Yes, he sends word ahead to let you know to expect him in twelve weeks."

"He must wait! I have not cleared the passes."

"He has already set out from Belfalas."

Maedhros nodded. "You must be tired. My household has retired, but let me take you to our guest quarters." He ushered the man away.

My brother leaned in and told me, "If the passes are cleared, then we can ride out too." 

"Yes," I said numbly. I wished to see my father. I wanted to go home. Twelve weeks. Only twelve more weeks.

"We should ride with the warriors for clearing the passes. Then we can make for home directly afterwards." 

He saw the bereavement on my face and pinched his brow in frustration.

"Húrin."

"It is only a summer's tryst." I hated how hoarse my voice had turned.

"I shall ride with the warriors. Join me in the encampments when the paths are clear," he allowed. 

It was the first time in our life that we would be parted from each other. Our untwining had begun earlier, when we had been on Thorondor's back, and only one of us had seen the fires of Angband unobscured by dust and fog. 

That night, I found Maedhros in high spirits, buoyed by the tidings of his brother's imminent return, even if there were tactical sweeps to be undertaken to clear the passes. Had he forgotten that the passes cleared also meant my departure? Had he no qualms about being parted from me? 

\-------------

My brother and the warriors rode out to begin clearing the passes. After their departure, I was lonely. 

I had forced myself to stay away from Maedhros's quarters. I had forced myself to relinquish my desire to seek intimacies with him. His joy, I found cruel, for it was clear that his brother's impending arrival had cheered him, eclipsing all else in his mind. 

We remained cordial when we encountered each other, and I could tell that he seemed perplexed by my change in humor, but he did not seek out my reasons, and that seemed cruel too. 

Menor was curious. The maids too. Frustrated by their solicitous conversations, I rushed up the hills to the eyries, where Thorondor remained.

"Ah, young Húrin! It is odd to see you bare of face." 

I had shaved in spite. Maedhros had liked my stubble on his skin. 

"He does not want me anymore!" I confessed impulsively, running my hands through my hair. 

"How old are you?"

"Twenty and six." I scowled at Thorondor. "I am young, not foolish. It is only a tryst. Even so, there are basic courtesies, none of which the barbarian has upheld!" 

Thorondor seemed amused. 

"If he has tired of me, why cannot he tell me so?" I demanded. "We have only eleven weeks and two days left! I remained behind so that we may make the most of it." 

I glared at Thorondor who took no pains to hide his merriment. 

"Has he spoken to you of me?" I asked eagerly. "Why cannot he see that I am aggrieved by his cruelty? Why cannot he understand that we are running out of time?"

Thorondor was of no help, plucking away a twig or two from his wings. I sighed in exasperation. 

"I know. I know!" I lamented. "I shall not have my answers unless I seek him first. Even if he were of the mind to do so, it will take him weeks to come up with a contrived plot stagemanaged to seek answers from me. Weeks we cannot afford to lose!" 

\-----------

Mind made up, I sent a summons and waited restlessly in my quarters. 

Half an hour later, during which I had paced and neatened the bits and bobs in my quarters, I heard a rap on the doors. 

"Enter!" I called out. 

"You sent for me?" He asked, concern evident on his features as he quickly surveyed me to ensure my well-being. He was in his riding clothes. He must have been outside, tending to his duties. He had come to me abandoning his errand. I was cheered by the solicitousness of the gesture. 

"Is all well?" He asked, nearing me. "Did you receive ill-tidings from your kin?"

Perhaps I had been rash, I told myself grudgingly. He was used to summons that led to dire tidings of death and doom. It was unlikely that he had been summoned before to answer a smarting lover's dudgeon. 

"Oh!" He said then, eyes widening. "You are angry."

"Eleven weeks and two days before we must part, before I return to my father's lands," I bit out. "You have been spending your time in blissed ignorance."

He seemed well and truly befuddled. I had heard said that women were strange creatures, easily offended by the trivial, and their men were too stupid to understand their mercurial changes of temper. I did not blame the women for their frustrations if all men were as witless as the one that stood before me then. 

"Is it intimacy?" He asked hesitantly. "Are you angry that we have not indulged in carnality for a few days?"

I glared at him, outraged by his inability to understand the matter that had caused me to fret. He sighed and raked his hand through his hair in frustration.

"Húrin, please tell me. I cannot read your mind." 

I sighed explosively and threw up my hands in defeat. "I shaved my beard and you said nothing!"

"I was fond of your beard, but what has that to do with anything?" He asked, perplexed. "Bearded or not, you remain yourself."

"You have not sought me for conversation or company! You have not come to me to understand why I have been ailing!" 

"I knew you were withdrawn," he said helplessly. "You seemed to seek solitude and I hesitated to burden you with company." He hesitated, and added softly, "I apologize if I caused you distress. It was not my wish. How may I make amends? As you pointed out, we have scarce eleven weeks. I should not like us to spend the rest of your stay here at odds with each other." 

My spirits were renewed by his apology. I could not fault him for his nature. That he had set aside pride and offered to make amends, even if he did not understand the offense, reassured me that his cruelty had been one of ignorance and not one of deliberation. 

"I require no amends," I told him honestly. I went to him and pulled him into a kiss. He tasted of honey. His skin and clothes smelled of smoke. 

"I was at the apiaries," he explained, when I raised my brows in enquiry. "There was a nest of wasps that had been harrying the bees. We were smoking them out today." Then he grinned, admitting, "I lolled about under a suitable tree and sampled the honey, while watching our beekeepers smoke out the wasps."

"Playing at a prince of leisure, are we?" I mocked him, and nudged him to my bed. 

"Let me join you after a bath. The smoke will ruin your bedding." 

I cared not. I moved swiftly to push him back onto the bedding and straddled him. Inspired, I caught his hand and pinned it down only to notice the sharp panic on his features. In haste, I loosened my hold and he exhaled shakily. 

"No restraints," I swore in earnest.

He nodded in acknowledgment. Then he offered, uncertain and flushed, "I am not averse to restrictions if they do not impede mobility." 

I paused to contemplate the meaning of that, and blushed when he brought a thumb to trace my lips. I did not know if I would enjoy what he was alluding to. However, it was rare for him to be direct in expressing his desires and I did not wish to discourage his thawing. 

"You must tell me if I am bungling it up," I entreated. He raised his brows. Oh, well. "Pinch me, then!" I amended, blushing again. My composure was a lost cause and the amusement in his eyes did not help. I set about to stripping us both, and cast about for a suitable piece of fabric. The nearest was a faded yellow scarf I used underneath my helm to keep my hair pressed flat. It was of soft cotton and I trusted that it would suffice. 

I turned to him. There was an edge of darkness to his gaze, keen and desiring. I was relieved, abruptly, that I had not questioned him further. His sigh when I placed a thumb in the hollow of his throat, when I forced his jaw open, terrified me, in how it stoked my desire high. I was not gentle when I stuffed the fabric into his mouth. The edges spilled out, and I tugged at them lightly, drinking in the shift of his reactions. His cock was hard against my belly, and his hand trembled as it came to my hip, drawing me close. 

"Will you let me blindfold you?" I asked, dreaming of the possibilities. The reactionary jerk of his hips against me told me his answer. He was flushed, from brow to throat to chest to groin, open in his want, stripped of coyness and games. 

I took his cock in my hands and slowly stroked. "I could bind you here," I suggested, my mouth loose as my imagination streaked into wickedness. "My tutors often threatened the lads to have their cocks bound, as punishment for fooling about with the maids." 

His fingers were digging into my skin and his breathing had turned erratic. I ran my hand down his cock, to his testicles that I had not touched but in passing before. I cursed myself for having neglected to, for his legs parted easily when I began to roll them in my palm. I scratched softly there, and he came, his cry muffled by the fabric in his mouth. The abruptness took me by surprise. It took longer to bring him to crest as a norm. He tugged the fabric from his mouth, and I had to bend to kiss the reddened curves of his lips. I was hard but staving off my climax so that I might enjoy him then, soft in lassitude as he was. 

"No pithy remarks about my eccentricities?" He asked, running his hand down my spine, to fondle my arse. 

"No," I said happily. "I cannot wait to try this again!" 

"An enterprising dominant lover, are we now? I remember you blushing," he teased me, though he yielded without rancor when I kissed him fiercely. 

"I have been corrupted by your wily seductions," I defended myself earnestly, earning a wry grin from him. Then he frowned in thought, as I had seen him do when he meant to broach an idea new to our trysting. 

"Confess to me your many perversions!" I demanded, eager to try the novel and the taboo with him. 

"You make me sound lecherous," he protested. "I shall have you know my inclinations are perfectly commonplace." Then he dragged his hand down the curve of my buttock into the cleft of my body. A finger skimmed the flesh to the entrance there, and I stilled, trying to become used to the new sensation. It was pleasant, though novel. I began to understand why buggery was a common way to seek pleasure amongst men, even when there were connotations of emasculation associated with being buggered. 

"You can bugger me!" I responded enthusiastically, keen to try. 

"I prefer to receive," he admitted, moving his hand to my hard cock. "We need not attempt it if you are repulsed by the act. Many are."

I strived to understand why a man would prefer to be buggered. Then I shook my musings away. Little availed me in understanding Maedhros when it came to his sexual inclinations.

"Húrin?" 

"I am afraid to hurt you," I confessed, thinking of what he had spoken once before about his torment in Angband. "I am afraid," I admitted. Seeing the disappointment in his gaze, I hastened to add, "If you could teach me, if you could bugger me first, then I would be more at ease." 

"Lie back," he commanded. I obeyed swiftly, parting my legs. He rose to press a kiss to my knee, and the odd gesture of affection made me grin at him. He reached for the vial of olive oil I kept on hand to treat skin chafing from long days in the saddle. He opened the cork with a sharp tug using his teeth, and the sight of it made me nearly spill.   
  
"My barbarian ways never fail to enchant you," he teased me, bringing the vial to trickle its contents over my cock. He set it aside then, and anointed me with his fingers, dragging slow strokes up and down, unhurried in his motion. He wiped off his oily fingers upon the hair matted on my chest. The sensation was queer on my nipples, and sent a flare of arousal to my cock when he scratched in mischief along their edges. 

"We should spare your sheets," he explained wickedly. He brought his fingers to my mouth. "Clean them off. I don't want my hold to slip when I am teaching you buggery." I blushed, but tentatively took finger after finger into my mouth, sucking each off until every trace of oil was swallowed away and the flesh tasted of him. "Very good," he praised me, and the words sent pleasure into my gut. 

He took a deep breath and straddled me, eyes drawn in focus as he used his hand to drag my cock into him. I was grateful for his grip about my cock, for I would have spilled in disgrace as soon as I felt the warmth of him touch me. He took his time, lowering and rising a few times, until he sighed and settled as the girth of me entered him fully. Our bodies were joined intimately deep in him and when his hand came grasping for mine, I caught it to drag it back to my mouth, to press kisses and little nips, and to lave a finger or two with my tongue. His arousal was returning, and he winked at me before rising to his knees and thrusting himself down on my cock in a single, fluid movement. A long gasp escaped him when he was fully seated on me again. Inside, he was heat and silk and clutching intensity. My vision was turning black at the edges as I kept my body still, afraid to spend before he was done with me. I could not look away from the fierce loveliness of him as he repeated his movements, each up and down uncoiling his grace and voice until he was trembling about me and his voice was breaking hoarse on the cusp of climax. Enchanted, I rose to sit and pulled him down further, holding him at his most open. His head came to rest on my shoulder and his heartbeat was a wild dance against mine. His erection was flushed against my belly, leaving tracks of pre-ejaculate against my skin. When I held him to me and thrust up, a helpless cry left his mouth and he bit into my shoulder. I did not know how to bugger, but I knew he enjoyed manhandling so. I grabbed his hips and forced them to stillness, spearing him again and again relentlessly, until the heat of him was trembling silk fluttering about my cock, needy and grasping. I lifted him up with brute force and pushed him back into the bedding.

"Húrin, I need-"

"You are in no state to command," I told him, taking him by the thighs and spreading him wide. The entrance to his body was red and inflamed, and he smelled of olive oil. "Look at you." I pushed a finger in, trusting that he would not be harmed, and it slid in easily, into the tightness of him, and his hand came to my shoulder, imploring in stark need. 

"It is not enough," he entreated. "Húrin, please!" 

I inserted another finger and explored the contours of him inside. His clenching was distracting and tempting, and I wanted nothing more to put my cock into him again. I waited, though, sensing that he wanted to be held at the edge as badly as I wanted to hold him there. I moved my fingers in and out, and demands spilled wordless in gasps and cries from his lips. The give of him about my fingers made me withdraw them. His flesh clenched in vain about nothing and it was the most erotic sight I had seen. 

"Fuck me," he said, voice catching on the words. The words made my cock jerk in response. His eyes were darkened and sweat sheened him. "I yield, Húrin. Fuck me now, please." 

"Very good. Manners are important, as you once told me," I teased him, though I was close too, and I caught his legs and dragged him forcefully to me, so that when I entered him, I could bend to kiss him, to watch every trace of expression on his face. My scrutiny made him flush, but he was too unspooled to conceal any of it. I thrust into him sharp and fast, again and again, until he came with a silent cry. The sight made me spill into him. A curl of possessiveness caught me as I felt his insides clench about my release. I stroked his hair away from his face and pressed a soft kiss to his brow. As I made to roll off him, he caught my hip to stay me. 

For the first time, he fell asleep after one of our trysts, and I watched the sight of him in repose, in my rooms, in my bed, wearing only the marks of my hands and teeth on his skin, smelling of sex and olive oil. I withdrew from him carefully and covered him with my cloak. 

I made my way to the window and watched him for a long while, as I strove to come to grips with the dawning truth that he was the fate that danced on my brow. 

Turgon had called me young. My brother had called me foolish. They were both right, I admitted to myself. It was no tryst, not to me. When he had parted his legs and taken me into him, when I had toyed with him and teased him, when I had wondered at his yielding, through it all I had loved him. 

Outside the skies were darkening as another storm drew close, drawing the day into early darkness. A pell of thunder cracked through the silence. 

"Did I fall asleep?" He asked, stirring into alertness. "You exhausted me, you clever, wondrous brute." 

"I hate the darkness," I muttered, turning away from the window. 

"Aure entuluva," he remarked, stretching lazily. 

"What does that mean?" I asked, coming to join him on the bed again. He shifted his head to my thigh and pulled my cloak tighter about him, yawning, tired.

"The day shall come again."

\-----------

The weeks fled by quickly. My introduction to buggery opened new vistas of carnality to us. I took him against the cedar doors of his chambers. I took him in the baths. I took him often in his bed. He could be occasionally persuaded to ride me, but he preferred to have me lead. I came to prefer it too, for I loved watching him unravel under my forcefulness. I began carrying vials of oil in my pockets, given how frequently we succumbed to our hunger for each other. 

"I have not seen him smile as frequently as he does these days since we crossed the sea," Menor remarked. 

He had come upon us in the corridors, when I had been preoccupied holding Maedhros against a pillar to kiss him fiercely. Maedhros had recovered first from Menor's teasing, and bid us both a good day before walking away to his duties. 

"Perhaps you can convince him to wear cheerier colors too," Menor suggested wickedly. 

"I have, in vain," I muttered, blushing. "Did you come looking for me?"

"I was in search of my sparring partner," Menor answered. 

I went with him to the sparring grounds, and spent a pleasant afternoon in combat. 

Exhausted from the exercise, I was walking back, when I saw a maid and a lad kissing each other in the flower meadows. His hands were on her breasts, kneading and cupping them. They were in blissful delight, wrapped in each other, and paid no mind to who might see them. 

Maedhros did not hide our tryst from his court or household. He kissed me frequently in the corridors and on the ramparts, before his guards and courtiers. He had worn away my shyness too. I remembered that he had kissed me first on a bed of wildflowers. He had stark disinclinations when it came to certain sexual acts, but he did not seem to have any concerns about the location of our trysts. 

I blushed as I plotted. We had two more weeks. I intended to make the most of our remaining time together. 

\--------------

"Let us go for a hunt together? Perhaps to the vales to the west? The warriors say that the game is rich." 

He looked up from his correspondence and pondered my suggestion, before shrugging, saying, "Why not? There is little I must attend to in court this week. I have not hunted in years." 

"I shan't tell tales of your inadequacies to your warriors," I promised sweetly.

We rode out at dawn, and I led him past the vineyards and the settlements into the high mountains. We made camp the first night in a cave I had espied when I had come there with my brother many weeks ago. 

When I went to fetch water, I returned to find that he had assembled a campfire deftly, locating it at an angle that shielded it from the gusty winds. There were rain clouds beneath us, for we were at high altitude. There was snow on the peaks and I hoped that the weather would not turn. 

"Does it remind you of your youth?" I asked him, as we nibbled on tack and exchanged the mug of water taking turns. 

"Yes," he admitted. "We would be together for months, away from court and duty."

We shared a bedroll that night, and he fell asleep easily in my arms, though there were no guards and doors protecting him. He trusted me to keep him safe, and the knowledge made my heart clench. 

We rode through the high mountain passes to the western vales. Many of them were settled at lower altitudes, but there were glacial alpine lakes and wilderness in the valleys in the heights. I led him to one of those, and he exclaimed when he saw the spread of wildflowers and the still lake at their heart. There were mountains encircling us, snow-capped and pristine, untouched by the malice of the enemy. 

"Thank you," he told me quietly, as he set aside sword and armor. 

I watched him drink in the quiet peace of the landscape, and I knew that he would not come here after my departure. It ached. The enemy's dragons were ready to wage war. His forges had prepared his armies. Beleriand would not withstand the next assault. Maedhros, even if he was ensured safety in Himring, could not let his brothers and cousins fall to the enemy. He would lead his armies to defend them. There would be another war, and it would be the last war for the rule of Beleriand. 

"What shall we hunt?" He asked me. 

I placed my hand on his sternum and informed him, "You are the game."

He inhaled sharply and nodded, lips quirking up in surprise at my bold suggestion. 

The bards in my father's hall of fire had sung of maidens chased by their wooing lads, of coy dances of retreat and approach, until the maid was caught in her sweetheart's embrace. 

I chased Maedhros through the reds and whites and yellows of the wildflowers, through weeds and boughs, about trees of pine, until we came to the lake. He paused them, and undid the scarf about his neck, letting it fall to the ground with coy challenge in his gaze. When I gave him chase again, I had his scarf tied about my wrist in promise. 

After merry hours of play, finally I caught him in a bed of flowers, and kissed the laughter off his lips. 

"You meant to draw me here," he said then, looking about us, taking in the sea of blue of hare's bells and lupine. "Your subterfuge dazzles me."

"Enough," I told him firmly, taking him by the hand and pulling him towards the stump of a fallen tree. "You are at my mercy now." 

I stripped him quietly, batting away his hand when he made to undress me. When he was nude in the bright sunlight, I stepped back and removed his scarf from my wrist. 

"You threw it at me because you wanted me to use it. Ask me," I demanded, and waited patiently, as color flushed his cheeks at my boldness. 

"You have become unforgivably skilled at drawing me out," he remarked. 

I waited, portraying nonchalance, though I cheered inside at his praise. 

"Blindfold me," he asked, after a few long moments. 

"Gladly." 

His skin was warm as I stepped close to tie the scarf about his eyes snugly, taking away his sight. When I ran a rough hand down his arm, and spun him about, he clung to me, afraid to lose his footing on the uneven ground. When I pushed him to his knees, he went easily. When I spread my cloak on the tree stump and bent him over it, he sighed and let me turn him cheek to cloak. 

"Let me know if you wish to stop," I reminded him. 

"Could you silence me?" He asked then, surprising me once again with how he had come to trust me when it came to carnality. 

"You asked," I said, startled by his openness. 

He laughed, and I had not heard him so carefree in joy before. "It is certainly easier when I cannot see you watch me."

"We have nothing suitable," I ruminated, taking into account our clothing articles. "Unless-"

"Yes," he said, without even waiting to hear what my suggestion would be. 

"You cannot know what I meant to say," I said half-heartedly, drawing his pile of clothing closer and pulling his undergarment to me. 

"Remember that I have been accused of foresight," he said merrily. I rapped my knuckles against his shoulder in remonstration of his silly wit. He jerked in reaction when he heard the sound of ripping fabric. It would be a good day, I was beginning to see. His hearing was amplified by the loss of his sight, and I imagined it would only intensify everything after I gagged him. I brought the fabric to his lips. 

"Open up," I demanded, laughing as he cursed at my prescience when it came to his inclinations. "I could stuff it in, but you do so enjoy it when you are willingly partaking in your despoilment."

" _Reluctantly_ ," he clarified, and opened his mouth for me. I ran a finger through his mouth, over the surface of his tongue, scratching lightly at his palate, and when he made to swallow, I held him by the jaw and ran my finger along the lines of his teeth. He was missing two of his teeth at the edges, and there were a few chipped too. I realized what must have happened. I was about to withdraw my finger, afraid that I might have ruined his joy, when he took my finger deeper with his tongue and sucked at it sweetly, before releasing it with an obscene pop that made me spill in my breeches. 

"You are incorrigible," I said, laughing and annoyed, for I had planned to spill in him. 

"You will recover," he promised. "When has the sight of me at your mercy failed to inspire you?"

"Enough," I told him, and stuffed his mouth with cloth. Ensuring that I had not caused him true discomfort, I patted his cheek. He turned his face into my palm, trusting, and sighed when I kissed his brow. 

"I mean to try something new," I told him, returning to kneel between his parted calves, drawing myself flush against his thighs and buttocks. "You contrive our couplings so that you are on your back every time, allowing me little opportunity to pay homage to you from behind." I squeezed his arse and his head came up, jerking at the fondling. "When I am done with you today, I promise that you will be begging." 

I gave him my fingers first, stretching him for use. He was accustomed to it, but the novelty of his position and being blindfolded made him tense delightfully against my flesh. When I withdrew my fingers, he parted his legs further to allow me closer. 

I fished out my cock from my breeches and entered him, and the feel of my clothing against his nudity made him clench tight about me, desiring. The sight of him, in our field of lupine, yielded to me in entirety, bent for my pleasure under my hands, drew me rapidly close. I endeavored to increase his enjoyment, dragging my cock out slow each time, pushing in rough when I entered. His hand came to his cock. He had spoken the truth earlier, that being deprived of sight emboldened him. He was usually hesitant to touch himself while I watched. 

"Slowly," I told him. "I don't want you finishing before I allow you to."

His groan was audible even through the gag. It sent me to climax in him and his body clenched in vain about my softening cock. 

"Easy," I murmured, pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck. "I am not done with you." He shook his head, needy, and I ran my hands up and down his flanks to quell him while I caught my breath. When I recovered my strength, I turned my attention to the length of his back, kissing and biting down his spine, about his ribs, upon the protruding blades of his shoulders. He squirmed against me, endlessly, but took it all. And when I hardened in him again, he turned his head seeking a kiss. I refused, pushing down on his shoulders to hold him at my disposal, fucking him hard. The first time had helped my endurance, and I pounded into him until he lay as pliant as raw silk under me, about me, tightening helplessly as I fucked him the way he liked it the best, with long thrusts and sharp, circular snaps of my hips. 

I brought my hand to his mouth and removed the obstruction, so that I may hear the sounds that he made, words that were a mixture of my name and entreaties, groans and cries. 

When I spilled in him again, he sobbed, pressing his forehead to the wood in frustration. 

"Don't come," I warned him, feeding him my fingers. He licked and laved at them, and his lips were trembling as he pressed kisses to my knuckles. 

"I cannot last," he confessed, his voice torn at the edges of it. "I am overwhelmed, Húrin." 

"Not yet. I have more I wish to do to you." 

"What could you possibly-"

I inserted a finger into him, alongside my softened cock, and the squelching sound of it tracking through my spend in him caused him to cry out again. 

"You are quite open," I remarked. "I wonder what the state of you will be after another round." Despite his fervent protests, I withdrew completely, and bent to part his cheeks wide, looking at where my spend left him to smear his thighs. His testicles were flushed and full, and his cock hung between his legs reddened by need. 

"Húrin-"

"You can stop me if you mind," I told him, and ducked to suckle my spend out of him. His limbs froze but his insides quivered in desperation about my tongue and his wails were torn from him by every laving drag along his sensitised flesh. I came up to breathe, and smacked the flavor of petrichor off my lips. 

"Húrin, please," he begged for the first time. I meant to have him beg again and again, for hundreds of times, before I let him spend. 

So it was. His legs tightened about me in desperation when I feasted on him again. When I fucked him once more, words had fled him too, leaving only inarticulate exhortations. And the time after that, his cries were voiceless and his mouth had fallen slack. There were tears of frustration wetting the blindfold, and there was no resistance to his frame as I used him roughly. I turned him about and lifted him to place him on the stump on his back. I removed the blindfold from him and watched in pleasure as his eyes blinked hard a few times, unaccustomed as they had become to the bright light. 

His breath caught when I brought his ankles up, spreading him wide. 

"You may come when I fuck you this time," I promised. "I want you to touch yourself."

"I doubt I will need to," he said honestly, and his neck arched back when I thrust into him once more. 

He took himself in hand, his movements stuttered and uneven as his hips lifted into my thrusts. He was right. He came after a few strokes, spilling between us, and I climaxed as he trembled about me in orgasm. 

I dragged him off the stump onto the meadow, and kissed the wet corners of his eyes and the tear tracks on his cheeks. He buried his face in my shoulder, and sobbed, every nerve ending used unto extremis by my brutishness. I caressed him until he quieted, and pressed gentle kisses to his hair. I was exhausted too, and my thighs and stomach had begun cramping from overexertion. 

We must have fallen asleep, for when I stirred again, dusk had painted his skin into rich hues of red and gold. The air was chilly and I knew we ought to make camp. 

"Wake up," I nudged him. He did not wake. Having not the heart to disturb him, I left him wrapped in my cloak and set about building our tent on even ground. I fetched water and warmed it. I set out waybread for us and toasted it on the fire. The scent must have woken him, and he came to me with unsteady gait and bright-eyed, content, wrapped in my cloak, bare of feet. 

"I should see to a bath," he said tiredly, settling beside me, letting the fire warm him. "I cannot bring myself to effort."

"I warmed water and set out a rag. The lake is too cold," I said. "Let me take care of you tonight. You can wear your pride tomorrow."

"Have you perchance considered that I wear my pride because I was at the mercy of others for many years? My brother bathed me and tended to every bodily need of mine for nearly a decade as I recovered." He yawned. "Well, see to me then. I trust you to."

"I know you do," I said, kissing his cheek. I saw to him, and cleaned myself afterwards. 

We held each other through the night, and I counted his eyelashes in the firelight. 

\--------- 

When we returned to his fortress, in the courtyard waited a group of warriors. 

"The passes are cleared, my Prince. Your brother will arrive in three days. Lord Húrin's escort has been prepared to ride at dawn tomorrow." 

Above us, Thorondor led the Eagles to Gondolin. 

My grandmother had once told me of augury, of the soothsayers who could tell the future by studying the pattern of the eagles, finding in them traces of _Oionos,_ of omens.

\------------

"Prince Maedhros," I said as I bade farewell at dawn.

He beckoned forth his valet, who came hurrying bearing aloft the helm the Dwarf King had given him. 

"The Dragon-helm is yours," Maedhros told me, holding it aloft, and placing it gently on my head. "A token from my house to yours, for saving me in battle, for cherishing me as you have."

I nodded, robbed of words by his gift and speech, and forced myself to remain stoic. 

When I was prepared to ride, astride my charger, I lost my composure and watched him, craven in grief. 

"I shall see you again," Maedhros promised, and tilted his head up for a kiss. 

The waning summer's dawn became him, softening him into peace. I kissed him fully, fiercely, drawing petrichor into me, and hoped that he would never learn that I knew the truth he was the doom that danced upon my brow. 

He unearthed an apple from the pocket of his robes and offered it to me. 

"For the road," he said impishly, and I knew he was attempting to cheer me at parting. 

I offered the fruit to him, as he had once offered me an apple on the ramparts of his fortress. He took a crisp bite before handing it back to me. I tracked the mark of his teeth on the apple's green skin.

"Aure entuluva!" he promised me.

And I rode away from him. 

\-----------------


	2. Psyche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is topsy-turvy. Hold on.

  
**Act II: Psyche**

  
Bear up, my soul, a little longer yet;  
A little longer to your purpose cling!

  
My father died in battle. I ascended to rule in Dor-lómin. I took to wife the daughter of a noble house. 

My brother often teased me that I married Morwen for her Noldorin complexion. I grew to love her, as she grew to love me. She often spoke of how she admired my justice and fairness in rule.   
  
"You are unlike the men my maidens gossip about," she would tell me, when I took her to bed. 

"How?" I would ask, tracing the curve of her belly where grew our child strong. She hoped for a son, and I hoped for her safety during the childbirth. 

"You do not shy away from a woman's mysteries," she said, blushing, as I parted her legs to seek her sex with my mouth. 

"I am inordinately fond of your mysteries." I winked at her. 

I had a summer with Maedhros to thank for my aptitude at sex, and for my evenness in my dealings with my wife. His love and esteem for his female cousins, and his familiarity with them, had turned me to treat women as I treated men, with fairness and equality. 

Morwen bloomed under my care, and each time she smiled at me involuntarily I thanked Maedhros for his fierce convictions about what a man owed his wife. I had been young when I had loved him. The love I bore my wife was the love of a man full-grown, leavened by life's ups and downs, grown stronger by her companionship through it all. 

\------ 

"Your princes have written to you," my wife said, bringing in my correspondence to our sitting room, where she would darn and I would write letters in the mornings. 

There was a letter from Fingon. He was summoning his vassals to Barad Eithel for a grand council. I looked out through our window. There were plague clouds above us. Dor-lómin did not enjoy Himring's or Gondolin's girdle of mountains to block Morgoth's smoke and pestilence. 

The second letter was from Turgon. He spoke to me about the eagles. He offered me his felicitations for my wife's pregnancy, and entreated me to write to him when my child was born. 

The third was from Maedhros. His letters were longer than Turgon's, though less frequent. 

_"My brother has undertaken the arduous task of chasing the wasps away from my bees. I look forward to a rich harvest of honey this year, for he is determined to smoke the wasps to dust._

_He has also appointed himself, with new vigor, to see me fed and fattened. I remember your distaste for buffalo milk. You shall be pleased that you are far away, for now I am forced to consume buffalo cheese and meat and bone broth, as my brother is convinced that I am wasting away. I cannot bring myself to argue with him. I never could._

_The dragons stir from their caves, and I heard of incursions renewed in Anfauglith. When I stand upon the ramparts of my fortress, I see dark clouds moving towards Hithlum. My brother pities my obsession with watching the peaks. He thinks I relive my neighbor's hospitality whenever I behold the volcanoes. Perhaps you shall be the only one who will believe what I see._

_Your wife bears a son._

_Did you know that many years ago, I woke alone on the eve of my brother's departure to Belfalas, clammy and frightened? He came to me worried, and was about to postpone his travel to care for me. I promised him I was all right, and bid him bring me parchment and quill, for I had a message to send. I wrote to Turkáno. I had dreamed of two handsome youth needing a refuge. I sent for Thorondor. You know the rest._

_Your wife bears a son. The dragon-helm will be his._

_You have little patience for my ramblings. I have sent a foal for him, bred from my finest. Pray, care for the beast until your son can claim it._

_I had an apple today. I remembered the glint of sun on your golden hair as you rode away."_

Nobody had spanned in me the intensity and spread of emotions he had. How was it that he could take me from fury to grief to love in a few words? How dare he bring his soothsaying to my unborn child? How cruel that he must stand and watch the enemy's movements with none to believe his words? How dare he unburden himself after all these years, that he had sent word to Turgon to shelter us? If I closed my eyes, I could taste a mouthful of apple, tinged with petrichor.

"Are you well?" Morwen asked me, concerned, looking up from her darning. 

"I miss my youth," I said honestly, rising and stretching. "Care had not settled into my bones then. Now I wish to remain here, to attend to you, and never leave your side. They send me a summons to Barad Eithel." 

\--------   
  
Loathe as I was to be parted long from my wife, riding in Húor's company to Barad Eithel reminded me of our youth. As we journeyed, I began to find a measure of nostalgia in his company, even as I fretted about Morwen's pregnancy. 

Barad Eithel was palatial, looming larger than either Turgon's towers or Maedhros's ramparts. It had been first raised by Fingolfin. Fingon had extended it greatly, bolstering its defenses and raising new barracks for his burgeoning armies. 

The High King awaited us in his courtyard, in the company of his heralds and courtiers. He was handsome, his features classically Noldorin, dark of hair and tall of stature. There was good humor in his eyes. They called him the drunkard king. He was said to be unworthy and selfish in rule, unlike his father or cousin in Himring. And yet none more valorous than him had drawn breath in Arda. 

In royal raiment, crowned, he was a king of war. 

There were no children running amok as had been common in the courtyard of Himring. There were no lovers in the alcoves, as had been common in the courtyard of Gondolin. 

"Lord Húrin, welcome to Barad Eithel!" Fingon greeted me. 

The royal feast arranged to welcome his vassal lords was magnificent. There were wines of every kind, and meats from game and cattle and poultries. The high halls were bedecked with the standards of the house of Finwë. There were paintings on the walls from ceiling to floor, of hunting scenes and of wars. There were attendants everywhere, seeing to our needs before we could even voice them, filling our flagons and our plates. There was entertainment, music and dances. 

Turgon's table had been a cosy affair, and he needed to be dragged to supper by his indomitable daughter. Maedhros frequently forgot to keep a table, unless he was reminded. 

"How do you find Barad Eithel, my lord?" Fingon asked me, as he came to accost me at my table. He sat beside me and toasted me. He was as unpretentious as his brother and cousin, I realized, and grinned at him as I saluted him with my flagon. 

"I have heard of Húor and you from my brother and my cousin," he told me, eyes unerringly shifting to where Húor was dancing with a young maid. "They have both waxed eloquent of your skills in battle and rule. I heard from one of your warriors that you have a wife in the birthing bed. I apologize for the timing of my summons." 

He was sharp. Maedhros had always said that Fingon was an excellent tactician. That must mean that he was adept at assimilating information quickly.

"My cousin sees a war approaching in the span of years. I require you to raise an army for me," he said plainly. 

I began to admire him, this man of few words and mighty deeds. 

\-----

Morwen gave birth to a son. The babe came to the world clutching a blood clot in his fist. 

We named him Túrin. When I took him into my arms, foreboding seized my heart whole that I had to master my composure before my wife noticed. 

I prayed for the first time in years that night, as it rained. I knelt and bowed my head and prayed to Manwë and Varda, to Orome and Tulkas, to Irmo and Ulmo, and to the other Valar.

\----------- 

After my son's birth, the days darkened. 

The pestilence from Angband lingered in the air, laying fallow fields and killing our cattle with strange malaise. 

It touched our children then, and I held Morwen and my son as they wept for little Lalaith. 

I devoted myself to raising an army for the High King. Morwen devoted herself to our son. Incursions by the orcs became commonplace, and I turned inured to cremating the dead of my people. 

Then came the thralls, for the orcs often kidnapped children and women from the settlements. Often, they would be set loose afterwards, and they would return limbless or senseless, with their eyes or ears or tongue taken. Their bodies bore scars that I was often too late to shield from my son's sight. 

My brother offered me a consoling gaze when I pronounced my verdict that we must put the thralls to execution. 

"Is there no other way?" Morwen asked me that night, eyes red from weeping. She had a kind, strong heart, and she wished to see the thralls healed and sheltered. 

"Idealism wins us no battles, my dearest," I told her, kissing her brow, drawing her to my chest so that I could hold her close. 

The latest letters from both Turgon and Maedhros had been grim. Maglor was raising a host for his brother. Glorfindel had been raising a host for Turgon. 

_"My brothers are making their way to Himring,"_ Maedhros had written _. "Thingol refused to surrender the Silmaril into their keeping. Melyanna is worried, as am I. Lust for the Silmaril cannot be easily withstood. The jewels will not stay in Arda or return to Valinor."_

Over the years, his letters had begun to mix soothsaying and fact. I feared for his health. Turgon had noticed the same. _"He does not live in the present anymore. I fear that he is unmoored, but for his brother_ ," Turgon had written. 

\------------------- 

I held Morwen one last time and kissed Túrin's brow. 

"Take care of your mother," I told him, taking his hand and placing it on Morwen's expectant belly. 

Then I rode to join Fingon's host with my warriors. 

They meant to prong Angband between Maedhros's host and Fingon's. I feared that the plains would spell the end of both their armies. Morgoth's power over the Iron hills meant that he could turn the tide of battle at any time of his choosing by concealing a host in the tunnels of the hills that he had wrought in the early ages.

The warlords met in Himring, one last time, to take counsel together.

My brother and I rode at Fingon's side into the courtyard. We had come to esteem the High King. He was a true King of War, as I had once assessed at Barad Eithel. His plainness of speech did not bear Turgon's caution or Maedhros's reserve. His good humor was not his brother's forced cheer or his cousin's wistfulness. Turgon longed for the days of their past. Maedhros hearkened to the future. Fingon was King in Arda, in our present, and he dealt boldly with what was. 

There were children running about, curious to watch the warriors, and their mothers were calling them to order in vain. 

"Make way for the prince!" The guards called, and there he was, thinner than he had been during our first meeting. He wore grey and there were new cares on his brow. He was charming and gracious as he came to receive us, even if we came for war. 

He embraced his cousin, and sighed when the High King cupped his face and pressed a kiss to his cheek. 

"You came," he murmured, his reserve falling away for a sliver, as he took comfort in his cousin's arms, resting his head on the broad shoulder of the King.

"You called," Fingon said, true of heart. 

Maedhros had told us once that there was no truth to the rumors. He had not been forthright, I realized. Fingon was no liar, and there was only love in the King's eyes. 

"I shall see to our cousin." 

Maglor, for it must be him, for he resembled the paintings in Turgon's palace of Feanor, had a voice sonorous and golden. He came briskly to his brother's side and scowled at Fingon. 

"I see you have missed me, Macalaurë," Fingon said, laughing. "Very well then. I shall not besmirch your possession." He left Maedhros and turned to embrace his scowling cousin. 

Maedhros seemed exasperated by the duo, but he turned towards me then, and his smile was genuine and shy, as he came to me. 

"Húrin! I promised you that we would meet again," he said softly.

I embraced him, and for the first time in years, my fears retreated a moment, as I held him to me. 

"How fares Lady Morwen? Has your son begun to ride his pony?"

"Túrin is accomplished on horseback," I replied proudly. "Morwen is with child again."

"Come, come!" He exclaimed then. "I have prepared your old quarters for your brother and you. Let me lead you there. The castle is crowded and I fear that my household is overwhelmed." 

"They are not used to the demands of a normal fortress," Húor teased him, coming to embrace him. "I cannot recall you tasking your household with duties, Prince."

"You will find that changed, Húor," Maedhros said. There was mirth in his eyes as he led us to our old quarters. "My brother is authoritarian."

\------------

As the feast drew to a close, I found him on the ramparts, watching Angband. 

"Maedhros," I greeted him, alerting him to my presence. I feared to look at Angband. What might I see? "How goes the watch?"

"No novelty to report," Maedhros said wearily. "He has been building prisons in the earth, to house the thralls that man his forges these days. He must mean to take many prisoners in the war. Glaurung has come to his full strength. There are Balrogs leading his armies. Orc hosts everywhere, awaiting command."

"We cannot win on the plains, Maedhros. You know this. He will have the advantage of high ground in the Iron Hills."

" _Tears unnumbered shall you shed_ ," he said quietly. "The prophecy of Mandos states that we cannot win this war, Húrin. No Noldor host shall undo the enemy's power in Arda." 

The crushing inevitability he spoke of sent me reeling. 

"Cease your soothsaying!" I raged, clutching him by the shoulders and turning him to face me. His gaze was distant in contemplation. "My family awaits me in Dor-lómin. My people await me. The Edain have bled and died for your cause for centuries. I refuse to follow you to war if you cannot set aside your fears!" 

"This was my home. I had found my peace here," he said softly, mourning. "I shan't have a home again." His face, I noted in horror, was wet with tears. "I would tell myself that today is better than yesterday, and it was true for a long while after my return. Every day was better than the day that came before. This is the crest of the tide. Every day since shall be worse than today."

"Maedhros-" I began, worried for his mind. I could not fathom his fear. I drew him to me, and the motion was natural to me despite the years that had lapsed since the last time I had held him. 

He crumpled into inconsolable sobs as I embraced him. 

There had been dancing. My brother and I had cheered as the High King had danced for hours on end with his cousin. Fingon had seemed worried, and had exchanged meaningful glances with Maglor throughout, even as he catered to Maedhros's fancies. I had not known Maedhros to favor dancing or wine to the extent he had during the feast. He had seemed reluctant to part with his cousin. He had clung to the King, and I knew that he was unsettled by something he had seen, for his face had been cut by grief. Maglor had been alarmed and had drawn him away from the feast. 

Glaurung had said that Maedhros's fate was twined with Morgoth's, that Morgoth would hold him once more, until the breaking of the world. 

"Your brothers and cousins will not let you be taken in war," I promised him, wondering if it was that which terrified him. "I will not let you be taken, Maedhros. My brother and I slew a Balrog for you, remember?"

"I have not the strength to face the rest of it," he confessed in my arms. When he met my gaze again, he said quietly, "Fate dances on your brows. Úmarth."

Úmarth. Ill-fate. 

\-------------------

"Lord Fingon, your cousin's fatalism worries me," I stated flatly. 

We were working together to craft the plan for our hosts to meet before the gates of Angband. Maglor was working quietly alongside us. It was fascinating to watch him interact with Fingon, for it was clear that he did not harbor deep affection for the King. They were ruthless tacticians, both, and their work together was exemplary. I admired how they could read each other's minds as they moved piece to map and debated fiercely about the benefits and tradeoffs of each location and denomination. Little wonder why Maedhros had sent his brother to the war counsel. Maedhros was not one for laboring over a large table of troop pieces and maps. 

"He cannot ride to war," I added quietly, looking up at Maglor and Fingon both. 

It ached to speak ill of Maedhros. I loved him still. However, I had seen what Turgon had. Maedhros was changed. I could not allow his insensibility to drive our host to defeat. 

"My cousin is unsurpassed in strategy," Fingon replied. 

"There is _no_ strategy when he means to send his army to the plains."

Maedhros knew the plains as no other. He had watched betrayal after betrayal, deception after deception, incursion after incursion, happen on those no-man's lands that Morgoth had claimed in all but name. 

"Lord Húrin means no offense, Macalaurë," Fingon said hastily, striving to stay the wrath of his temperamental cousin. 

Maglor shook his head and said tiredly, "Lord Húrin speaks the truth, Findekáno. You know this. My brother means to lead the host to defeat."

"Lead?" I asked, alarmed. I had taken for granted that Maglor would lead his brother's host, as he ever did. 

"Yes, he shall lead our host," Maglor confirmed, and I saw that it had been a fiercely fought debate that he had lost. 

"He has not led a host to war in a long time!" I exclaimed. "It is not his strength." 

Fingon sighed and rubbed the back of his neck in exhaustion, before looking out the window at the peaks of Thangorodrim. 

"My King, you must exhort Prince Maedhros to see sense!" I demanded. "He will spell the death of us all."

"I cannot sway him. Nor do I wish to. I trust him," Fingon said plainly. 

"Tell me how we shall win with the hand he seeks to play!" I entreated. "Tell me how I shall tell my warriors that we have planned for victory! Tell me how many of us will return to our realms!" 

Fingon shook his head, and turned his attention to the maps, refusing to meet my accusing gaze. Maglor held my gaze, though, grieving and resigned. 

"You and I are men of war, Fingon. You know that we will be routed. Our women and children will be taken captive. Beleriand shall fall! The strength of your people and mine will be broken past mend. We will be scattered, kingless and realmless, _dispossessed_."

I drew in a deep breath, and found only words that could cut them to the bone. "Glaurung has prophesied that Maedhros will be Morgoth's, captive until the end of the world. No valiant may save him. If all of us die, who will stay his fate?"

"My brother believes in shaping fate to destiny," Maglor said quietly then. His eyes were glittering with unshed tears. "He does not hold that our kind can obstruct what is fated."

"Well then, let us leave him to his philosophy and soothsaying, to his lofty concerns about Gods and fate. Lead his army, Maglor."

"He does not think we can prevail," Fingon interrupted. "He will not let Macalaurë's name be tarnished in lore."

"Lord Glorfindel once told me that Míriel laid down her life in Lorien because she saw the doom on her family. If she had not, perhaps that doom would not have come to pass," I stated angrily. "Maedhros fears a defeat and yet is set upon assuring it." 

Maglor cleared his throat and left the chamber, face bleached white in horror at the words I had spoken.

"I do not think that our war is where he has focused his strategy," Fingon told me. There was grief and exhaustion in equal measures on his brow. Hesitantly, he added, "I have reasons to believe that the parley that saw him taken captive was no mishap of gullibility. I have not voiced my suspicions to my family, and certainly not to Macalaurë, who has mourned him everyday since."

I was staring at him, terrified at what that meant. _A survey mission,_ Thorondor had said. 

"He is mad. He is more insane than his father was!" I shouted, wanting to shake sense into Fingon so that he would see it too. 

"I am only a King. I can, perhaps, uproot Morgoth in war with our host. Even if I did, no judgement of mine will hold him. No noose or sword I wield can unmake him from the Song of Eru. I have not the power to seal him in the Void. It must be done another way. My cousin's madness, as you term it, is my last hope."

I could only behold him in pity, for he spoke the truth. Morgoth was a fallen God. No enchantment or sword we held could bring him to a true death. No prison of ours could hold him. The Gods across the sea had the power to seal him in the Void, but they had not answered our prayers. 

"Your love blinds you," I said to the wretched King. "My people kill the thralls, for pity can only lead to betrayal and deception, death and tragedy, for these thralls even if we had loved them once are warped by the enemy's sorceries. They are pawns sent to us by the enemy, and the enemy controls their minds."

Fingon smiled sadly. With a touch of dark humor, he told me, "I would worry less about my cousin if it were as simple as that." 

I bowed and left him to his maps. I briskly walked to the courtyard, to regain my composure and to ground myself in the practical. It was clear that the King would allow Maedhros leeway. Could I write to Turgon and demand that he intervene? It was too late, I knew. 

"Lord Húrin." 

It was Maglor. 

"Walk with me," he suggested. I fell into step with him, as he led me to the orchards. There were children everywhere, picking apples, making merry. 

"They will all die for your brother's madness," I said softly, thinking of Túrin. 

"Findekáno trusts him," Maglor stated. "My brother is not insane. My father was. My uncle was, at the end. They say that the Silmaril is turning Thingol to madness now."

"These are not the acts of a rational man, Prince Maglor." 

"No, they are not," he admitted. "The acts of Gods are not rational to us. We give them our blind faith nevertheless, entrusting in their wisdom. My brother's war is waged against the Gods. Yes, his acts are irrational to our understanding. I have chosen to give him blind faith."

I plucked an apple, and looked at its fresh, unripe skin. I _had an apple today. It reminded me of how your hair glinted gold in the sun as you rode away._

"The Edain have no grudges against the Gods," I stated. "My people are caught between your family and Morgoth."

"Findekáno once told me of the thrall, the knave, and the knight. The people of Arda are knaves, caught between the Gods and the doom we bear. They look to you, to the knights, to shield them, Lord Húrin. It was so. It is so. It cannot change unless Manwë's mercy rains over Beleriand, instead of Morgoth's malice."

I sighed. It was the truth. 

"Húor and I were his guests one summer long ago. He spoke of you everyday," I told Maglor, changing the subject from war. "He awaited your return to him eagerly." As a loving wife waits for her husband to return from war, I thought then, and shook off the fancifulness notion.

Maglor laughed, saying, "Oh, my brother runs contrary. He beseeches me to return when I travel, and he entreats me to let him have his solitude when I am home." He scowled, and added resentfully, "I suspect he wishes me to watch him in woe, as he broods darkly staring at those volcanoes for hours on end."

Maglor could not see what I could. He did not know that his brother watched the enemy, and that his watchfulness had little to do with brooding over memories. 

I feared that Maedhros's long watch had turned him paranoid and fearful, resigned to defeat. 

\---------------

"Húrin! Húor!"

King Turgon came to us glad, as we met his host in the woods of Ered Wethrin. He had ridden to join his brother with ten thousand.

"Concealment," he counseled his brother, practical and cautious as ever. "He will draw us out to trap us on the plains. Our scouts report an amassing of Balrogs in the hills."

"My lord!" Another scout joined us, bloodied, his armor broken. "Rout on the eastern flank! Uldor betrayed Maedhros!" 

Fingon cursed. 

"Have they slain Maedhros?" Húor asked, alarmed. 

"His brothers saved him," the scout reported. "Lord Caranthir and King Azaghâl cavalcaded the routed host. The Dwarves are dying in great numbers, as they are taking the brunt on the frontlines. Lord Maglor is striving to call the host to order, to formation, so that he may join what remains to your armies. He means to arrive in three days."   
  
They would be thirty-six hours delayed, if they made it. My brother cursed. It would be a desperate thrust through the plains, with no advantage of high ground, past dragons and orcs. 

"Himring?" Fingon asked. The scout shook his head.

Maglor would not have waited to man the fortress. He could have saved his brother's host by retreating to Himring and waiting out the war. He meant to ride down the plains, with a broken host, even if it meant death and fire. If he did not arrive, we knew that the western flank did not have the numbers to assail Morgoth, or to retreat safely. 

"My eldest cousin?" Fingon demanded, worry etched on his somber features. 

"He means to corral the vanguard. Glaurung is harrying them, and your cousin's presence stays the dragon's attack."

"Findekáno," Turgon began quietly. "If you ride for Gondolin now-"

"They will come," Fingon said. "Let us wait, brother."

"You are King," Turgon emphasized. "All will be lost if you die here!"

Fingon shook his head. We waited in the woods. 

\----------

Morgoth drew us out. He sent the orcs with a thrall and tortured the wretched creature. Gwindor, of Nargothrond, screamed in fury. It was his kinsman. In wrath, he rode out, and so did his soldiers behind him, ending our concealment. 

"Heralds!" Fingon called, and I saw a man who had made ready to die that day. 

"Findekáno!" Turgon said, worried. "Macalaurë has not arrived. We do not have the numbers." 

"Morgoth will send the dragons to the woods. We cannot win here." The King clasped his brother's arm. "Lead the vanguard, brother. It will be massacre and madness on the frontlines, and you have grown soft in Gondolin." He winked, embracing Turgon in good cheer. 

Húor and I rode at Fingon's side. 

It was massacre and madness. Gwindor and his soldiers had, in grief and rage, beaten back the orcs and the Balrogs to the gates of Angband. With rousing cries, they smote and felled the mighty gates, and entered Morgoth's realm. 

"I had prayed that I might not enter Angband again," Fingon murmured, as he led our armies in. 

It was a fool's gambit. Fingon was a King of War, determined and true in how he led his men, adapting swiftly to changes of odds, bolstering the flanks that were under attack by fresh hosts of orcs that Morgoth had concealed. 

On the third day of blood and desperation, when we were striving to hold the gates open so that we would not be trapped inside Angband with our reduced numbers, the clarion calls of Finwë resounded from the east, and Fingon cried in relief as Maglor led the remnants of their host from the plains, fell of face and bloodied. 

"Findekáno! Fall back! Fall back!" He yelled. "We must regroup!"

"They have thrust into Morgoth's courtyard, cousin! We are exposed on all sides! I cannot fall back!"

"He has seen you!" Maglor said, and it was the truth. Morgoth had been sending balrogs and mighty wolves to us, drawn to Fingon, keen to see the King slaughtered in Angband. "The dragons are coming at his bidding. Húrin, Húor, bring the King outside the gates! We will bolster the frontlines."

Maglor sent one of his brothers, Celegorm, with a portion of their host to circle about, to man the frontlines while we extracted the King. 

"I cannot let Gwindor and his warriors die!" Fingon lamented, as we retrieved him safely past Maglor's bulwark. 

We made camp there, outside the gates, and the orcs slaughtered Gwindor's warriors before us. Curufin had had the sense of mind to order collected the shields of the fallen Dwarves, as those were proof to dragon fire. They used the shields to pen in our lines, preparing for the arrival of the dragons on the morrow. 

"Where is he?" Turgon demanded, as Maglor came to embrace him. 

"It was rout," Maglor said sadly, removing his helm. "Carnistro and he are bringing the vanguard. The Dwarves would have all perished had we abandoned them in the scattering. We decided to split our armies so that Carnistro and Russandol could save the infantry." 

"Thank you for coming, Macalaurë," Fingon told his cousin. "You gave up Himring." 

The King was grieving for Gwindor's people, but he had circulated among our warriors to bolster their spirits, with his characteristic good humor and optimism. He knew the defeat that was inevitable, and yet he showed no signs of it. 

"It was no hardship," Maglor remarked dryly. "I had tired of the views. If we live tomorrow, you must order Russandol to take up a seaside keep."

"You and I know, cousin, that he listens only to you," Fingon said, laughing. "Ah, Macalaurë! How true you remain to yourself even when we have lost everything."

"It is not late yet," Maglor said seriously. "You can make for Gondolin with your brother, Findekáno. Let us cover your retreat." 

It was then that Maedhros and Caranthir arrived with the remnants of the infantry. 

The Dwarves - many of them had been cooked alive in their suits of metal, even if dragon fire had not touched them. Their King was dead. Their casualties had been reduced, nevertheless, because of the Noldorin cavalry that had swept them to safety along the length of the plains. 

I had not seen burn victims before. It turned my stomach. Maedhros and the commanders of the Dwarves were in discussion with the healers, their faces solemn, as they no doubt discussed who to heal and who to offer the mercy of death to.   
  
Only an eighth of Noldorin infantry had survived. The warriors spoke of how Caranthir's footmen had been slaughtered in massacre by the dragons. Maedhros's cavalry, long used to manning Himring and defending the plains, had managed a better showing, and was the only reason why their host had arrived. He had managed to keep alive most of his cavalry. 

Of the Edain, the houses had turned on each other, betrayed by Uldor. Maedhros had managed to summon order, and had sent them to the front to carve a path through the orc hosts. The orcs were cannon fodder for Morgoth. The Edain had been the same for Maedhros, who had ruthlessly prioritized his cavalry over all else. 

\-----------

"We have lost the commanders of the house of Marach of the eastern hosts," Fingon stated, as we assembled in his tent, to take counsel. "Húor, Húrin, you must lead them tomorrow."

"We have little experience leading infantry," I admitted. 

"Lord Fingon." It was Beleg, of Doriath. "Allow Mablung and I to ride with the Edain. We are used to leading infantry."

"Very well," Fingon agreed. "Turkáno, hold the vanguard. If we are routed from the flanks, we must have a path to retreat to higher ground."

"You should not be at the frontlines tomorrow," Maglor told Fingon sharply. "The rout on the plains of my brother's host will have been child's play in comparison."

"I agree with our cousin," Turgon concurred. 

"Six thousand were slaughtered today. Two thousand were killed within Angband, thanks to Gwindor's folly, and twenty thousand outside the gates. Thirty thousand fell in your ride west. If I don't lead from the frontlines tomorrow, the men shall not have the will to fight. We are sending them to death."

"You are King," Caranthir reminded him. "If you die, the war is lost." 

"The Balrogs are on the plains," Maedhros said then. He had spoken little before. He had remained seated, pale. Unlike the rest of us, he had not yet had the time to wash his face or clean his armor. Red marked him, and he smelled of death and dragonfire. His voice was hoarse from inhaling smoke. "Gothmog has arrived to lead them."

Gothmog had slain his father.

"Speak plainly," Fingon implored. Maedhros flinched and avoided the King's eyes, his eyes closing abruptly as he tried to stave off emotion. 

"Show us," Maglor asked, practical, quietly anchoring his brother. "Show us what you mean on the maps." 

Maedhros walked to the map, and moved the pieces of Dwarf infantry to the front carefully. He had saved the Dwarves to bring them to slaughter before the gates. The Edain and the Noldorin did not have the resistance of the sturdy Dwarves to heat. We were not armored in metal that could protect us from flames. If the Dwarves prevailed and the dragons were weakened, then our hosts stood a sliver of a chance at victory yet. If the Dwarves were slaughtered, then the time they bought us would let Turgon build a path to retreat. We were discomforted by his ruthlessness, and none knew what to say. 

"Let us ready the cavalry then to clear the orc hosts," Turgon said finally. "It will draw the dragons out."

"What of the Balrogs?" Caranthir demanded. 

"We have slain Balrogs before," Turgon said, pragmatic.

\-------

As I returned from speaking to the people of Marach, I saw Maedhros standing alone at the camp's edge, looking to the hills where shadow and flames danced. 

"What do you see?" I asked him, drawing close. 

I could not forgive him for his madness that had seen us defeated, but I did not desire to face death on the morrow having parted in hatred. 

"I was poisoned by his venom," he said abruptly. "It is a slow and lingering death that I have staved off as best as I could. You think I gave the war away."

So did his kin, though they loved him too well to tell him so. 

"Sauron once asked me what I intended to do." 

Goosebumps rose on my skin, and it was not the night's cold that drew them to the fore. Sauron, the torturer. 

"I told him that I intended to hoodwink the Gods with fool's gold."

I wished that I could pretend not to fathom his meaning. He had often feinted defeat to get to his desired outcome, in our trysting. He had deliberately lost a wager. He had yielded to me coy when I gave chase, only for me to later realize that I had been the one fooled by his guile. What reason had I to think that he was different in war? Fingon had doubted that Maedhros had been taken unawares by the parley that had gone foul, which had led to his captivity. 

"I saw that you flinch little to sacrifice your allies, Maedhros. What of your family?"

"Who is to say that what we call death is not life, and that what we call life is not death?" He wondered. He turned to me, and his palm came to clasp my shoulder. 

"Find your rest, Húrin."

"And you?"

"I will go to the King," he said softly. The grief in his voice was stark and sharp as a sword's blade. The King would not survive the war. I looked away, pitying him for what he had seen. 

I had seen my father's death and had endeavored in vain to retrieve his corpse. It had left grief in my soul I could not heal. 

Had Maedhros seen his cousin's death with his accursed foresight? I pitied him, that he knew his cousin's fate before it had occurred, that he would have to behold Fingon alive before he died. 

\--------

"You are ill-rested," Húor noted, as we arrayed for battle at dawn. 

"If I fall, you must raise Túrin," I asked urgently, clasping his arms and drawing him close. "Flee to Doriath. Melian will grant our kin entrance in the name of Beren."

"Húrin, you will not fall," he swore. "Today shan't mirror yesterday. The princes have realized their folly in trusting Maedhros. They have regrouped with a better plan."

"May I enter?" 

It was Fingon, helmed and armored. 

"What is it?" I asked abruptly, afraid to look at him after the doom Maedhros had alluded to the previous night. 

"Should I be slain, ensure that my cousin does not react in folly," he said carefully. 

And I knew that he was aware of his fate. How could he not? Maedhros had been in no state to dissimulate and conceal the night before. He had not been, in weeks, I realized, as I remembered him clinging to his cousin during the dances at Himring. He had not been, in years, as I remembered the words of his letters growing heavier and burdened. He had been mourning his cousin's fate for years. 

"We need not bow to fate," I urged Fingon. He was King. He could turn the tides yet. He could retreat to Gondolin, recoup their losses, and live to fight another day. 

\---------------

Grief and fear had settled into the ranks of the Dwarves. It was only Maedhros's cavalry charges that held their lines at the front. Every mile was hard-won, in blood and smoking flesh, trampling over the orcs that Fingon's host had slain to clear the paths to the gates once again. This time, when the gates flung open, an army of Balrogs surged forth, spewing sorcery and flames. Gothmog was at their head, monstrous and fierce as he cut through the legions of Dwarves. 

"Hold the line!" Maedhros shouted. "Carnistro! Swordsmen!"

Caranthir's swordsmen were of little avail. They felled many of the Balrogs, but Gothmog was unassailable. I could see Maedhros cutting through the lines of the enemy to join battle with the Balrog, keen to slay the beast before the dragons arrived once more. 

"To me!" Fingon called to us. We were closer to Gothmog, for we were at the true frontlines, and Fingon meant to face the beast before his cousin arrived. 

Glaurung arrived then, breathing fire and clawing into the formations of the Dwarves, fierce and driven by vengeance, for they had wounded him on the plains. There were open wounds on his belly where the Dwarf King had pierced him. Maedhros turned to face the dragon, removing his helm, drawing the beast's attention to him. 

"Face me, foul beast!" Fingon yelled, leaping off his horse, bright and true as he strode forward towards Gothmog. "I slew your children in the crevasses of Angband once. I left their entrails on bough and bark for you to find. They screamed for mercy and I gave them none." His sword was of Feanor's steel, and it glinted in the sunlight as he drew the Balrog into single combat, as his uncle had once. 

"Foolish lordling!" Gothmog roared. "I will have you quartered and drawn to Angband by my servants! I will hang your corpse on the Thangorodrim as once I nailed your cousin to the rock." 

He swung his mighty whip and it struck through pebble and soil scorching dark flames. Húor and I led our men to slay his host of trolls and Balrogs, tiring and yet persevering, for how could we cease when our King battled fierce a foe older than Morgoth's realm? We killed them before they could reach Fingon, and bodies of orc and troll, of Elf and Edain, grew in circles about the High King and Gothmog. 

They said that Gothmog was born of Morgoth's union with Ungoliant, the first of all Balrogs, the father of all Balrogs. He was born of the union of a god and the primordial chaos. His strength was unnatural and inexhaustible.

 _No war I wage can overthrow a God. My cousin's madness, as you term it, is my last hope._ " 

Fingon knew his fate, and met it boldly, unflinching as he lost ground to the monster's whip and claws. And then out of its darkness, Gothmog conjured forth a mighty axe of black that all of Beleriand knew and feared. 

"Findekáno!" 

Maglor had arrived to relieve us, his cavalry sweeping away the trolls and the Balrogs that remained as they sought to reach the King. Gothmog staggered as Fingon pressed forth madly, leaping through the air to land a wound on the beast's hand, severing it at the wrist. The lash of the whip caught Fingon then, and he reeled back, unbalanced, before swiftly recovering his form. His armor was smoking. 

Gothmog rumbled, guttural, and another Balrog came forth, despite its many wounds, and cast a net of sorcery to trip the King. Fingon managed to roll away from Gothmog's axe and it left black wounds in the earth as craters. 

"Find him, Macalaurë!" Fingon yelled, as Maglor drew his sword and leapt off his horse to come to his cousin's aid. "Go to him!"

"I shall drag the prince back to my father, coating him in your blood and entrails, foolish Noldo!" Gothmog shouted. 

"Not while I draw breath, Gothmog!" 

Fingon swung his blade to free himself of the shackles in vain. Húor and I leapt over the corpses to the King, assailing the second Balrog that had deceptively disabled Fingon during the single combat. 

We had arrived too late, for Gothmog's axe struck flesh, and Fingon screamed. 

The battle was lost. 

We fought harder, slaying the Balrog, but more trolls had come, drawn by the King's fall. Húor and I stood on corpses as we swung our blades together, desperately, buying time for the retreat. 

Fingon screamed again, broken, as Gothmog cut his legs, forcing him to his knees. He made to stand once more, dragging himself up by the sword, and he faced Gothmog without flinching when the axe came to cleave him from head to toe. 

"The King has fallen! Fingon has fallen!" 

The lines broke, ruined by fear and loss. Celegorm and Caranthir were riding to assemble the retreat. Húor and I were all that remained, as Gothmog swung his axe once again to desecrate the King's corpse. 

His axe clashed against Fingolfin's sword, against Feanorian steel, as Maedhros met him. They had fought before, it was clear, because Maedhros knew to parry the monster better than Fingon had. He was wild in grief as he wounded Gothmog once, and then twice. His tears sparkled against the steel of his sword. 

"It is lost!" Húor yelled, as a troll swung its mace and felled him at my feet, crawling and yet bearing his sword valiantly to meet the troll's next swing. "It is lost, Húrin! Flee!" 

I swallowed and looked away from my brother's death, and leapt forward to meet Gothmog, coming between Maedhros and him as the beast swung once more.

"How dare you, puny Edain!" Gothmog roared.

Turgon's trumpets sounded then, as he rode to our aid. Gothmog and his trolls turned to face him, alarmed by the charge. 

"Come!" I told Maedhros, grabbing his wrist to lead him back to the safety of the retreat.

"I will not allow them to take him as a trophy," he said, still, pale of face, trembling, and he fell to his knees to draw his cousin's shattered skull into his lap, weeping. 

Turgon was beating back the enemies, but he would not be able to hold them back, I knew. 

"There is no time," I said plainly. He shook his head madly, rising again, and dragging clothes off corpses around us, coming to build a cairn of cotton, and then setting it on fire.   
  
Turgon was retreating, followed by a fresh battalion of Balrogs Morgoth had unleashed. He would not clear the plains, I saw, for he was outnumbered. I dragged Maedhros to his horse and slapped him once.

"Ride back to your brother," I told the grieving fool. 

"I must first-" he began weakly, finally returning to his senses.   
  
"Gothmog will drag you to Morgoth if you stay here any longer." 

"Come with me," he pleaded, embracing me abruptly, frightened as he looked at me. "You must come with me. I have lost enough today."

I kissed him. He tasted of petrichor and blood. 

"Aure entuluva!" I promised him, as he had once promised me, and he wept, shaking his head, refusing to cease clinging to me in desperation, afraid for me. He had loved me too, I realized then. 

Knowing firmed my resolve. I coaxed him to mount his charger once again.

"Take him to his brother," I whispered to the beast, speaking to it as once I had learned from the Sindarin hunters. The charger was intelligent, bred with care in his stables. 

The beast bore him to safety across the plains of blood. 

I turned away and ran to Turgon, as Gothmog flung him to the earth. I rushed to defend my friend, even as his warriors came to succor him. 

"He is King! Retreat! Save the King!" I yelled at them, meeting Gothmog with my sword. 

"Húrin!" Turgon called out. "Come with us!" 

"Aure entuluva!" I exclaimed, one and seventy-five times, refusing to die, occupying Gothmog and his army of trolls until Turgon led the last of the retreat away. 

"Death shall not find you today!" Gothmog declared, ordering me dragged to his master as he limped back victorious.  
  
\-----------  
  
" _You see what you shall know_ ," Maedhros had said once, when I had asked him why I saw past the sorcery that cloaked our enemy's lands. 

I was dragged past forge and trollshaw, past jeering orcs and mighty dragons, into the court of Morgoth. 

"You have been grievously wounded!" Morgoth exclaimed, as he took in Gothmog's state. "And the prisoner you bring is not the one I seek." 

"You will enjoy him, master," Gothmog said darkly, flinging me to Morgoth's feet. 

One of my teeth were knocked out by the force of my fall. I swallowed it, unwilling to show weakness.   
  
"He held me from bringing your prisoner back. He held me from slaying Turgon where he stood."

Morgoth's glove of iron came to tip up my chin as he stared at me. 

"What is your name?"

I spat at his feet, defiant. 

He laughed. "I could pluck the answers from your head, sweet prize. It will leave you broken and I have not had my sport yet." He beckoned someone else forth. "Sauron has a gentler touch." 

It was no gentle touch. The torturer ripped answers from my mouth, with brutal machines of pain and foul sorcery. 

"Húrin of Dor-lómin, we have given your wife to the orcs. We have fed your children to the trolls. We have burned down your house and fields. We have taken your people as slaves." 

I held fast as they wove lies, refusing to yield to despair. 

"Tell me where the entrance to Gondolin is, Húrin, and I shall have your wife freed."

Sauron unearthed another secret from me then. 

Morgoth laughed, entertained. "You should have joined me, Húrin. I would have gladly given the Prince to you, muzzled and leashed and educated in obedience. He would do it himself, willingly, if we were to dangle a child before him to bear the cost of his defiance." 

Emotion flickered across Sauron's face for the first time. Distaste and revulsion. Sauron had done worse to his prisoners. Morgoth's threat was not novel. 

"Bring the woman!" Morgoth declared. "Let us have sport. We have won Beleriand. The King is dead. The Noldor are broken, scattered, and they will never come to threaten me at my gates again." 

"My lord," Sauron began, wheedling, coaxing, striving to stay his master's plan. 

"You have kept her intact. If I did not know better, old friend, I would think you besotted."

Sauron drew himself to bow and retreated, to bring the woman Morgoth had asked for. 

She was of the Sindar, gold of hair and green of eyes, ethereal in the darkness and flame of Morgoth's court. She was clad simply in robes of black, and there was no deprivation on her but that of sunlight. Sauron dragged her closer and forced her to her knees before his master. There was no fear in her gaze as she looked upon Morgoth.

"Elerrína of the Sindar, sister to Thingol," Gothmog greeted her, tracing a claw down her fair cheek, leaving behind welted flesh and drawing a cry from her. "Sauron has kept you in comfort and ease." 

I began to understand that Gothmog and Sauron were at odds, equals and fighting for their master's favor. 

"My lord, I must insist that we reconsider," Sauron murmured lowly. "We can use her to ruin Thingol. Harming her to break a puny Edain serves us nothing!"

"I asked you to bring me the Prince, Sauron. You took my dragons east to capture him. Glaurung returned grievously wounded, and he was the only one to return. Gothmog gave me the High King's death. He broke their armies. He brought me a curious prisoner for sport." 

Morgoth's voice was quiet, and filled with dark wrathful promise. Sauron did not betray fear, but I knew that he must be afraid. Was the woman his mistress? Gothmog was exultant, and the flames surrounding his dark frame were bright in joy. 

"Take the woman," Morgoth ordered Sauron. "Take her here, before us, and prove to me that you are loyal to me. I shall give her to the Balrogs afterwards." 

Sauron's face was calm as he came to the woman. She did not make a sound as he shoved her to the ground and straddled her. He leaned forward, so that his helm and head obscured the woman's face and form. She made a half-stifled cry and then went still. 

He had snapped her neck. 

Morgoth's rage was fierce, tempestuous, as it sent the hall into darkness but for the jewels on his crown. Before he unleashed his wrath, Sauron had vanished, into smoke and vapor.

"Find him!" He screamed at Gothmog. "Find him and bring him to me!" 

Then he turned to me, full of malice, and commanded, "Take her, Lord Húrin of Dor-lómin. The prince whored himself to keep her safe while he was my guest."

_There had been a woman in the enemy's keep. He had cried out her name in his nightmares._

"She is dead," I pointed out. 

"What does it matter?" Morgoth demanded. "If you refuse, I will nail you to the rocks."

\-----------

Morgoth trapped me in a chair of sorcery, and unveiled to me my family's fate. 

I wept for my son, as he spiraled into grief and treachery, as he lost himself to vengeance. He had slain the innocent, he had slain the guilty, he had slain both friend and foe, heedless, as his path took him to Nargothrond. 

_Helm and realm bound, iron of death before the gate, your blood's death stained by fate_ , Maedhros had once told Glaurung. 

My son wore the Dragon-helm. He was called bloodstained. He bore a black sword and raised a mighty gate to Nargothrond's mouth in hubris.

I begged Morgoth for the first time when I saw the dragons stirring at his will. 

"Where is the entrance to Gondolin?" Morgoth demanded. 

I did not reply. Nargothrond fell, as Glaurung held my son captive under his mesmer.

  
\------------------ 

  
"Incest," Morgoth jeered, as he showed me Nienor and Túrin. 

I said nothing. 

I could not bring myself to be repulsed. Did it matter? They were alone, and they had only each other. Nienor made Túrin smile, drew forth the boy he had been before the fall of Beleriand. He gentled under her care. She grew strong and bold under his protection. What did it matter if they loved? 

Sometimes, it rained, and the scent of petrichor came to me, even among volcanoes and fumes.

\----------------

When Morgoth sent the dragon again, I screamed and begged for my daughter to be spared. 

"Where is the entrance to Gondolin?"

She wailed when she heard the truth of her husband, and cast herself to death. 

Then Túrin, grieving and mad, hunted Glaurung and put him to death. He hacked off the dragon's head and gouged out the sorcerous eyes. He cut open the beast's belly and ripped out innards and entrails. 

I knew pride then, though it was washed by grief. 

"Find him! Kill him!" Morgoth told Gothmog, furious that the most powerful of his dragons had been slain. 

Before Gothmog could find him, Túrin had vanished, raving mad. He cast himself upon his sword in suicide, the last of the heroes of Arda. 

"Your children are dead. Your people are dead. You are broken," Morgoth told me afterwards. "I free you. I am not disposed to cruelty towards a defeated foe."

He lied. As I walked away from Angband, I felt his sorcery thick in my throat. 

\--------------

I found my children's graves, where Morwen awaited for her end. She was dying, grieving and alone. She did not recognize me when I took her into my arms. I buried her beside my children's bones, and cried for them.   
  
Turgon refused to grant me entry, afraid of the sorcery that clung to me. Raving, betrayed, I spoke aloud his location to the winds, knowing that it would reach Morgoth. 

I ran to Doriath. 

Thingol, clinging to his jewel, had no counsel for me. I insulted him, for he had sent away my son and wife to their deaths, instead of protecting them as he had sworn to. I cursed him to be slain in these caves, and for his jewels to be stolen from him. 

His guard struck me and threw me into their prisons, but Mablung intervened and took me to Melian. Her power lifted me from my entrapment.

"Oh, what have I wrought?" I exclaimed, horrified. "Gondolin! Thingol!" 

"You cannot remain here," Melian said plainly. "Morgoth's power shrouds you."

"Can you break it?" I begged her. "Can you put me to death?" 

"You cannot be slain. He has ensured that you cannot be slain, but by his will. It is a spell of his devising. Úmarth." She contemplated as I wept. "Let me send you to Maedhros."

"I will not bring my ill-fate to him!" I exclaimed, horrified. 

I remembered the mark of his teeth on apple skin. I remembered how he had clung to me in blood and smoke, refusing to ride away alone. I remembered how he had wept in my arms, once in overwhelmed joy after a tryst, and once in grief as he mourned his home. He had trusted me, from the beginning unto the end. I would not bring Morgoth's shadow to that trust. 

"I will wander in these lands, until Morgoth has had his sport, until the breaking of Arda. I care not!"

Melian shook her head in pity, and asked Mablung to prepare an escort for the journey. 

\--------------

I was sent with the escort at dawn. As we drew farther from Melian's girdle, Morgoth's choking sorcery began clawing through my mind once again. 

They used the white ropes Melian had given them to bind me on my horse. They placed a muzzle on me so that I may not scream and give us away, so that I may not see through my eyes and spill our location to the enemy, so that I may not hear their discussions and deceive them to Morgoth. I lost track of day and night as we rode, knowing only the lay of the ground from the mare's motion under me. 

Then they lifted the muzzle from my face, and I saw the standards of the house of Finwë before us, by the stream we had come to stop by. 

"Well-met, Doriath!" Maedhros called out, dismounting and coming to us. "Did Melyanna contrive to send Thingol's Silmaril? Her summons was abrupt."

"She sent for you to retrieve your friend," the commander of Doriath said. 

I had never forgotten the crimson of his hair in Angband, for it was the color of the embers in the forges and the blood of the slaves spilled by the orcs for sport. 

"Húrin!" Maedhros exclaimed, running to me, eyes wide in wonder and joy. "Untie him! He has done no wrong!"

"No!" I shouted, afraid that Morgoth would use me to take him prisoner once again. 

Morgoth craved to have Maedhros under his thumb. His wrath when Sauron had slain the woman had been unimaginable. 

"The enemy sees through him, Prince. Morgoth's mind has overpowered him in sorcery. Melian asked you to hold him under guard lest he strike at you." 

"I will not be your undoing!" I shouted, as I remembered the secret of Gondolin I had given away, as I remembered the powerful curse I had spoken to Thingol. 

"Peace, Húrin," Maedhros said calmly, taking the reins of my horse. 

"Thank you for bringing him to me," he told the warriors sincerely. "Tell Melyanna that I am grateful to her."

A warrior broke the ranks then, and came forward in haste. I cried out a warning, afraid for Maedhros for he wore no sword or armor and his men had remained at a distance. 

"Cousin!" Maedhros exclaimed, when he beheld the form of the rider. A woman. He helped her dismount and embraced her. 

"I wish to accompany you!" She demanded, removing her hood. 

Her hair was gold and her eyes were blue, but her features I had seen before, in the men of her house. Artanis, Maedhros had called her. She wore a simple gown of white. 

"Your husband will be wrathful," Maedhros advised her half-heartedly. 

"He should have then thought better of bedding every courtier's wife in Doriath!" Artanis exclaimed. "Why must I show him courtesy when he shows me none?" Betrayal marred her features into desolation. _Our family has been unlucky in the matters of the heart_ , Maedhros had said once. 

"Return with us, my lady," the commander said then, sympathetic to the woman. "Húrin bears ill-fate."

"My family bears the doom of the Valar," Artanis said wryly. "I doubt there is anything Húrin's fate can add to our inconveniences. I shall ride with him." 

"What shall I tell Celeborn, my lady?"

"That I am not an orphan yet!" 

Maedhros sighed, and drew her to him, as we watched the warriors of Doriath return home. I envied their easy tactility. I had not been touched in three decades in kindness. 

"Should I bind you with rope as well?" He teased her. 

"Shut up, cousin. Take me home."

"Macalaurë has gone to meet Ereinion," he warned her. "And I am poor company, as you well know."

"I shall make do," she muttered. "Any of you are easier on my nerves than my husband." 

\-------------------- 

I woke abruptly, only to see Maedhros watching me in the dark tent. 

"I don't want you anywhere near me," I said hoarsely, wits muddled from sleep. I rubbed my eyes in tiredness, and then stilled. 

"Tie me down," I ordered him, frightened. "Tie me down or I shall summon your guards!" 

"Trust me," he said earnestly, bending to press a kiss to my brow. The sound I made was visceral, as a wounded beast, and he came unprotesting when I clutched him to me and sobbed. 

"I cannot protect you," I told him again and again, running my hands over his gaunt face, over the veins prominent in his neck and wrist, over his trembling limbs. "I can only bring you grief. You were right. All those years ago, when you spoke to me of fate, you were right." 

"You must tie me down," I begged him, weeping, terrified what I would wreak upon him. "You must not allow me trust." 

"I have known worse," he promised, letting me hold him as tightly as I could muster the force to.   
  
He tied me and blindfolded me in the morning, and placed the muzzle over my head to dampen my senses. I felt his lips press a kiss to my bound palms, before he withdrew to break camp and ride onward.

Each night that followed, he untied me and unbound me, and let me hold him in my arms. 

"Why aren't you afraid?" I demanded, for I feared for him every instant until Melian's ropes were placed on my wrists again. I stayed on watch through the night, afraid that Morgoth might use my sleep to bring harm. 

"Why should I be afraid?" He asked, yawning and stretching, turning to seek my heat. His health had weakened greatly, and he was only bones under skin. Grief had begun carving him from his flesh. Only his will, obdurate, remained the same. "Húrin, you have had me at your mercy many a time, and I have never feared." 

"He wants you!" I hissed. "He will not rest until he has taken you to Angband again."

"Oh, he can have me, at the end. Fate has deemed so, after all," Maedhros said cheerfully. "We fished for supper. Artanis insisted. She had tired of her husband's berries and rabbits, I hear. Would you join us?"

"No!" I exclaimed, horrified by his insouciance. "If you will not take the danger seriously, then I must!"

"I wish you would trust me," he said quietly. 

If Melian could not lift the sorcery of Morgoth, then there were none in Arda who could. I was reminded of Fingon, who had boldly met his death, unwavering in his trust. 

"Very well," I allowed, gulping. "If you bind my hands and legs with Melian's ropes, I shall join you for supper." 

He blinked, before saying in amusement, "Even if I were possessed of two hands, my dearest Húrin, feeding you would be rather unorthodox, wouldn't it?"

"You can tie me to a tree then," I said wryly. "You are said to be clever. I am sure you can manage."

Supper was difficult, for I was overwhelmed by how many of the warriors were those I knew from my time at Himring in my youth. They looked upon me with pity. Even Menor, who had sparred with me many a time, seemed to shy away from my gaze. None dared speak to me. I began trembling, though I was not cold.

Maedhros sighed and led me back to my tent, asking for our supper to be brought to us. His cousin trailed us. He made to remove the ropes, but I shook my head fearfully. 

"Trust me," he coaxed, and removed the ropes. 

It was bass. I cut the fish into neat slices and brought not one to my mouth, my stomach queasy in anxiety. 

"I knew your wife," Artanis said then, plopping down to my bedding, easy and graceful. She began carving her fish deftly. She stole a wedge of cheese from her cousin's plate. "Thingol has been poisoned by his lust for the Silmaril. Melian is lonely in her grief. Morwen brought her a measure of solace." 

She reminded me of Fingon, with her plainness of speech. 

"I knew your son too," she added, spooning a mouthful of broth to her lips and making a face. "He bedded my husband and most of Doriath. When he smiled, the maids sighed in adoration." 

Helpless, I grinned at her narration, at the picture she drew of him. 

"He was handsome and clever, accomplished in horsemanship and weaponry," she added. "When Thingol called him the greatest warrior of our age, Túrin shook his head and said that the honor belonged to his father."

\---------

I grew closer to Artanis over the journey, drawn to her by the tales she spoke of Doriath, of Morwen and of Túrin. She was clever and witty, and harried her cousin endlessly to amuse herself. 

"I have a daughter," she confided one day at supper. 

It was herring that night. Maedhros went out of his way to see her whims sated, and we had fish every night of one kind or another. 

"I hope Melian has not forgotten to feed her. Melian is a Maia. She does not know hunger as we do."

I was not certain if she was in earnest. I looked to Maedhros, who nodded. He had been busy avoiding his meal in favor of wine. His appetite, never the strongest in my acquaintance of him, had whittled down to nonexistence. 

"Eat that," Artanis commanded. "Or I shall write to Macalaurë." 

Maedhros sighed and complied half-heartedly.

"I wish my husband was half as devoted!" She lamented then, scowling at the fishbones on her plate. "He loves me, mind you! He merely cannot stay put in my bed and wanders as a pig in heat, rubbing his belly against anything that is warm." 

"My dear Artanis," Maedhros chided her. "Manners!"

I had once fancifully compared Maedhros's devotion to his brother to that of a wife to her husband. I had not dwelt on the comparison then. Then I thought of Fingon, and of Nienor gentling Túrin. I had not begrudged my children the little happiness that had been theirs. 

\------------

When I held him that night, I asked tentatively, "Do you love your brother?" 

Then I remembered what sorcery touched my mind, and shook my head hastily, warning him not to confide in me.   
  
He stilled in my arms, and said quietly, "I trust you. He is married. I don't mean to act on it."

"Why?" I asked. "You don't hold to taboo. You never have. He loves you too. I remember that he made little effort to conceal it."

He sighed. 

"Maedhros?"

"You know the stakes of my war."

I ran my hand through his hair and strands came away under my fingers. His constitution was flagging. I thought of the woman in Morgoth's keep, Thingol's sister. Sauron had snapped her neck instead of despoiling her, bringing upon him Morgoth's wrath. 

"Elerrína of the Sindar," I spoke her name into the night. 

Maedhros lifted his head from my chest. I had seen such grief on his features only once, when he had been weeping over his cousin's cleaved skull. 

"Your endurance ended when she died," I said softly. "What sorcery was it?" 

"Desperation," he said, the word torn from his throat in a sob. "She pitied me. Then she cherished me. I begged her for life, for I had to survive. She granted me my plea, by binding herself to me, ensuring that I lived. They had wanted me dead. It was only her grace that allowed me to cling to life." He whispered then, aggrieved, "Mairon promised-" he cut off his words, shaking his head. 

Mairon. Sauron's name before he had fallen. 

"He kept his promise," I told Maedhros. "Her death was as merciful and swift as a death in Morgoth's court could be."

They had taken turns and despoiled her corpse, and hung up the body quartered and drawn on the rocks. Carrion had picked away flesh to the bone. 

_You know the stakes of my war_. I knew. I had watched for thirty years my children's torment from Morgoth's prison. My wife was dead and my brother too. My people were enslaved. Morgoth's sorcery trapped me still. 

I wondered when he had first learned of the stakes of his war.   
  
\----------

We arrived at his keep in Belfalas. It was by the seaside, and I remembered Maglor telling Fingon of his desire to send Maedhros to a seaside fort on the last day of the War. 

It was tastefully decorated, in blues and whites, reminding me of his quarters at Himring where we had once trysted in joy. The crafts were coarsely wrought; those of the smiths of the Falathrim paled in comparison to the works of Nogrod. The bedding too, from the looms of the local artisans, did not boast the thread count of the cotton sheaves and looms of Dor-lómin. 

"You have found yourself a hovel, cousin!" Artanis teased him cheerfully, as he showed us about the keep. 

"Come now, Artanis! It is not a cave!" He protested, dancing out of the way of her whack, laughing, reeling her to him by her waist and twirling her into a silly waltz in the courtyard. 

She began singing, a Dwarfish lay about cooking geese over hearth fire, the coarse language made lovely by her voice. I watched them and felt Morgoth stir in me, grasping and reaching, but her song stayed him as once her brother's had almost defeated Sauron in Tol Sirion. 

"Lobsters for supper!" She demanded. 

"Your husband will hunt us for his supper," Maedhros commented, but sent a maid to the markets to fetch her lobsters. 

\-----

"You can stay in mine, if you wish," he was saying. "I would not mind. It faces the sea. Lovely views. Artanis will be jealous. Perhaps I should shift her to Macalaurë's sea-facing quarters. She shall never let me hear the end of it otherwise. She has always loved the ocean. Her grandfather was King in Alqualonde."

"You must lock me in," I told him, cutting him off. "I feel him stirring in my heart. Your cousin's song stayed him awhile." 

"Trust me, Húrin," he said quietly. 

He refused to imprison me. I refused to leave my chamber, frightened about what might occur. 

"I must relay word to Turkáno and to my brothers," he said, bustling about with his correspondence at supper, despite Artanis rapping his knuckles with her cutlery to bid him to partake of the meal. "They have been worried about you."

"About me?" Artanis asked. 

"About both of you," he amended. "Artanis, if you want me to eat these little monsters, you had best open them for me." 

"Macalaurë has spoiled you to the hilt," she muttered, peeling open the lobster daintily with her hands. 

He made a face at her perfect dissection of the crustacean, but plucked at the white flesh. It was the most I had seen him partake of. Artanis winked at me, conniving.  
  
The maid came in then, bearing a glass of milk for him. 

"Sheep's milk?" Artanis queried, wrinkling her pretty nose. "Russandol, you used to loathe it."

"If only our enemy had spared my prize buffaloes from his conquest," he lamented. 

She saw to it that he finished the meal. 

  
\-----------

I slowly become used to their chatter. After decades in Morgoth's captivity, I had forgotten the sounds of speech. Gradually, I began to follow their conversations in Quenya. 

Artanis thrived in Belfalas. She would go riding in the mornings to the cliffs and the bay, and return with dew on her cloak and fresh catch from the fishermen for our supper. She guilted her cousin into consuming his meals. 

"He has been brooding," she told me one evening, when he was called away to receive a courier. 

"We had been at our wit's end after the battle. His nightmares had returned. He called for you. He called for Findekáno. He called for our uncle. And then, a few months ago, he took ill. Cirdan sent for Thalion from Doriath. In his feverish delirium, he spoke weeping to Elerrína, he begged Sauron for mercy. We let his blood, multiple times, until Macalaurë feared that he would die of bloodloss and demanded an end to it. When his fever broke, he spoke your name as if you were by his side in the flesh. Then Turkáno wrote to us of your return." 

"I fear for him," I told her frankly, picking my words with stilted care. "There is the enemy's evil in me." 

I had never conversed in Quenya before. Now, all languages were equally alien. Their mother-tongue I had become accustomed to, due to their penchant for conversing at supper. I had never confided in a woman before. Even from Morwen, I had hidden matters of grave import, afraid to burden her. 

"He was there longer than you were," she said sadly. "In the years before the sun. I would lie beside my brother on the Ice, sharing his cloak, clinging to him, weeping as I dreamed of Russandol screaming for mercy. They say that Russandol stole from Morgoth. Some say it was a secret. Some say it was power. Some say it was sorcery. Morgoth, enraged, broke his mind to smithereens."

"His mind is his own," I pointed out. 

"No, no, it isn't," she said, smiling, reaching across the table to clasp my hands in hers. "That does not mean that he has not found a way to carve out a barrier between them."

"How?" I demanded. 

"Feinting," she remarked. "He is excellent bait and he has never shied away from exploiting that."

\----------

I went to his quarters that night. When I rapped on his door, he was surprised. He had undressed for bed already. He stepped aside to let me in and barred the door behind us. His bedding was in disarray. Had he been restless? Outside, the waves roared against the cliffs and the tide was fierce under the moonlight. 

"Can we share the bed?" He asked solemnly. "It is only that I was terribly alarmed whenever someone touched me in my sleep for years after I returned. I preferred privacy in my sleeping arrangements."

"He did not harm me in the manner he had harmed you," I told him gently, taking his hand and leading him to bed. "His creatures whipped me and starved me. They cast me into flames and into pitch. They drowned me. There was no rape or mutilation or perverse depravities. It did not occur to them. When he tired of my silence, he imprisoned me on a chair of sorcery and bade me watch my children's griefs." 

He remained silent, watchful, listening, as I continued. His eyes were full of sorrow and compassion. His palm trembled in my clasp. 

"I have forgotten the words of my people. I have forgotten language and song. I have forgotten my brother's face. I have forgotten the color of Morwen's hair. I have forgotten the pitch of your cries when you yielded to me. I have forgotten the fragrance of Turgon's lilies." 

"I remember the curve of Morwen's belly when I took leave of her before battle. I remember the mark of your teeth on an apple and the taste of petrichor on its flesh. I remember the first time Túrin had wept as a boy, over his sister's grave. I remember my brother's fondness for pike. I remember the sound of Turgon's trumpets."

"I wish to die, Maedhros. I buried my wife beside my children. I have undone Turgon's secrecy. I have cursed Thingol and condemned Doriath. I will not harm you." Before he made to speak, I continued, "Your war is with the Gods. I am a distraction. Allow me to leave."

He sighed and bowed his head before saying plainly, "Death will not find you, but at his hands."

"His power holds me. I mean to do away with myself. Drowning, perhaps," I looked at the sea. "Surely his sorcery can be turned against him."

"You are not strong enough to overcome him, should he sense your purpose," he said thoughtfully. Shaking his head, he continued, "You asked me once about the thralls. You said it was unjust to make decisions of life and death on their behalf until their mind had been restored. I ask you to trust that I can bring you to your mind in fullness. Your deeds, after that, whether they take you to vengeance or to death, will be your own."

"Melian was unable to restore me," I reminded him. "Fingon once told me that he was a King, that he was not a God. He was right. You are not a God, Maedhros. Mending this is beyond your power."

"Yes, it is beyond _my_ power," he admitted. "You must know by now everything I have undertaken has been beyond my power, since my grandfather's death." 

"Twelve weeks," I told him. "We counted twelve weeks once. Let us count twelve weeks one final time."

He leaned in to kiss me softly, a quick press of his lips to mine. I had seen myself in the mirror. I resembled the thralls I had put to death, empty-eyed and spiritless, frail and bearded, balding, weak of bones and flabby of flesh. My head of gold was grey. 

When he had first kissed me on a meadow of wildflowers, under the bright sunlight, I had been whole and bold, flush in youth's bloom. When I had kissed him last, on a plain of blood, under a red dawn, I had been his savior. 

"I am not as I was," I told the well-meaning idiot. 

"What has that to do with anything?" He wondered, withdrawing. "You remain yourself." 

He had once spoken the same words when I had shaved off my beard to spite him. 

"You are mad," I told him, and drew him to me, greedy and needful, desperate to grasp at all that remained of my heart. 

His tongue swept through my mouth, languid, and I felt it touch the gaps of my teeth knocked out by torture. His hand came to cup my head, as I moved back in discomfort, and he soothed me gently with his kisses. 

"Petrichor," I whispered, as I learned anew the taste of him. 

"Lobsters," he murmured, smiling, turning about to bring me to straddle him. "Are you comfortable? What do you wish for?"

"You sound like a courtesan," I said, laughing at his concern for me. My arousal had a mind of its own, drawn to need by his smell and touch. Underneath me, he was lax still. I wondered if it was my deterioration of physique and mind that had left him limp. 

"My libido has been finicky," he confessed then. "My constitution is not what it was, when you came to me at Himring as a lad."

He spoke the truth, I decided. His strength had waned. Perhaps it had taken with it other appetites too. Even if he was being untruthful to be kind, I did not care. I would have what he was willing to give. He was all that remained to me on Arda. 

Twelve weeks. 

Frottage had been our first act together. He taught me once again, until memories returned to my muscles, and I rubbed against him, needy, with his hand clutching me close.

When I spilled between us, his eyes were dark with arousal even if his cock had not responded.

"What can I do for you?" I asked him, trying to take his ailment in stride. 

"Take off your clothes," he stipulated. "I have missed the touch of your skin to mine."

"You had it for a few weeks," I reminded him, grinning at his silliness. "Pray, tell me that you have not been abstinent since."

"Thorondor did not fetch me handsome men after your departure," he said, yawning, coming easily into my arms and running his hand through the sparse hair on my chest and groin. 

"Do you see him?"

"Rarely," he admitted. "He dwells in Gondolin now. It is no longer safe for him to fly over long stretches of land."

"He must miss you."

"I made an excellent chamberlain."

My mind roosted on an earlier subject. Hesitantly, I asked, "Have there been others since that summer?"

He laughed, startled by my question. "I hardly entertained a plethora of suitors in my seclusion, Húrin. I slept with my brother once before the war, if you must know. After the war, my strength was unravelling, and I was in mourning." 

"His care suits you," I told him, watching the expressive flash of emotion in his gaze. "You must endeavor to take him as your lover. It shall anchor you to the present."

"Macalaurë anchors me as he is. He does not need to take me to his bed for that," he muttered. "I would rather stay out of his bed, as a matter of fact. He is possessive and demanding. He has my father's libido. I shall have to dose myself with aphrodisiacs to keep up." 

"And?" I asked, sensing the reluctance in him.

"He does not think highly of my sexual preferences," he admitted. "He is not drawn to men as I am. Incest alarms him. He certainly has not made his peace with my...eccentricities."

"Your fondness for being made love to on your back with your legs spread wide at another's whim?" I teased him, enjoying the flush of warmth on his cheek against my chest. 

"He would expire of scandal," Maedhros said wryly. "I cherish my brother's innocence and charm. Let him have his poetry and romance. He has informed me that rutting is for beasts." 

I laughed as I imagined Maglor speaking those words in his lovely, golden voice. He must have been stern of face and scowling, exasperated by his brother's eccentricities. 

"You seem poorly matched in inclinations," I said. "Just as well that your libido is ruined. You merely need let him spout poetry and wax eloquent about your eyes."

"I was afraid of that," he muttered, sounding long-suffering. "Thankfully, I love him very much, despite his stubbornness."

"Remember what Thorondor once said? You like valorous bipeds. You like them better if they are clever and see through your obfuscations. I doubt you can resist your brother." 

He groaned. 

"Try," I coaxed him. "When he returns, do try."

He did not reply, but as I held him and watched him fall asleep, I plotted ahead. 

\-------

"I had not known you were lovers!" Artanis exclaimed, gripping my hand, dragging me to the window-seat, so that she could pester me away from her cousin's eyes. 

"Tell me everything!" She demanded eagerly. "I have not seen him take a lover in centuries, not since-" she bit off her enthusiasm, flushing. 

I raised my eyebrows at her attack of discretion. 

"When I said that he may be able to teach you to undo Morgoth's sorcery, I had not meant that you should bed him," she pressed on, returning to her subject of curiosity. "Oh, Macalaurë shall have your head for this!"

"Let us keep it from his ears," I cautioned her. "It is only a diversion. I doubt Maedhros can be separated from his brother without breaking what remains of his health. Maglor holds to his grudges for centuries, I have heard."

Twelve weeks. We had kept twelve weeks a secret once before, abetted by his loyal household and my brother. Perhaps the household here was loyal to Maglor, and would tell him of our tryst. I hoped that it would not come between them.   
  
"Galadriel!" 

It was a male voice, proud and booming. She sighed and frowned. 

"My husband," she explained. "I have little wish to see him. I doubt he will leave until I do."

"Galadriel!" 

I heard the sound of swords drawn. Alarmed, I placed myself between her and the entrance.

A tall man, arrayed in the brown and green of Doriath, silver-haired and blue-eyed, strode in, followed by his retinue of warriors, their swords drawn.

"Unhand my wife, craven thrall! He shouted, walking to us with purpose.

"Celeborn!" Artanis exclaimed, edging about my frame to place herself between her husband and I, raising her hands in truce. "Húrin is our guest."

" _Our_ guest?" Celeborn snorted. "Tell your cousins that the next time they kidnap you, I will lead out the army of Doriath and chase them to Angband's gates."

"You don't even know where Angband's gates are!" She said, exasperated, standing tall, cheeks flushed. 

"Come with me," he ordered her. "Come with me now, and I shall not say a word more."

"I mean to stay here until the summer's end," she said firmly. 

"Our daughter needs her mother!" 

"Bring her here then!" 

He clasped her arm and pulled her to him. She cried out and wrested her arm away, furious. 

"Take your men and leave! And if you return with your weapons drawn, I shall not see you again."

"You maddening creature!" He exclaimed, frustrated by her determination. "Come home with me."

Maedhros came then, drawn from his chambers by the ruckus. He hastily came to his cousin's side. 

"Prince Celeborn!" He said courteously, bowing to the furious Sindarin noble. "May I interest you in refreshments? We have the most delightful-"

"Cease, kinslayer! I came for my wife, not to break bread with you."

"If you insult my cousin again, I shall never return to you!" Artanis raised her voice at him. "You shame Thingol, Celeborn!"

"You will have to return to me, Galadriel," he replied sharply. "Your brothers have been slain. Your High Kings have been dying like flies. You shall have only me at the end. You know that. And then, because I am a good husband, I shall give you refuge!" He glared at her one last time and took his leave abruptly, beckoning his retinue to follow. 

"What is this?" Maedhros was asking, drawing her hand to him, tracing the mark of Celeborn's fingers on her thin wrist. "Artanis! You must not let him treat you with cruelty!"

"You are confusing Eol and Celeborn," she retorted. "Celeborn is impetuous, but he does not intend to be cruel."

"What does it matter, when it harms you?" He said, stressed. "Artanis, please, let me take you to Ereinion."

"Why cannot I stay with you?" 

"Artanis-" he began, placating. 

"Shut up!" She exclaimed, eyes bright with unshed tears. "You cannot even tell me what you mean to do, to take Thingol's jewel."

"My brothers will invade Doriath regardless of my preferences," he said quietly. "There is time enough before the griefs to come." He took her hand in his. "Let us dance and feast tonight. What say you? I shall send for the bards. We culled the lambs yesterday. What shall I ask the kitchens to prepare for you?"

"Testicles," she demanded, wrathful still. "I want lamb testicles, fried, and served with butter." 

"You are as bad as Macalaurë," he said peaceably, and went about to see to the arrangements of lamb testicles and music. 

\-----

"I am not dancing with you unless you clear your plate," she warned Maedhros as we sat down to supper. 

Oddly, the testicles of lamb, doused in butter and herbs, were delicious to me. I had been unable to stomach many dishes, particularly the seafare that Artanis was inclined to see at the table for supper.

"You are an inveterate connoisseur of testicles, cousin," Artanis commented. "Do not be shy now."

"I cannot imagine what runs amok in your imagination," he said, refusing to be perturbed by her silliness. Even I laughed when she speared a clump and brought it to his mouth. There was mirth dancing in his gaze when he dutifully ate the morsel. 

Later, there was music. The bards were afraid to meet my gaze, but I did not care. Twelve weeks, I told myself, and drank in the sight of the dancing cousins, carefree and laughing. The way they clung to each other told me that it was their last summer together too. 

For Artanis's sake, I hoped that she had powerful supporters left after the death of Turgon and Maedhros. If she outlived them, alone, with only her husband to turn to, I feared for her happiness. 

"Dance with me!" She said then, coming to me, drawing me to the floor. "Cousin! Sing for us!" 

Maedhros sent the bards away, reserved as ever when it came to himself, and began singing to us. Artanis led me carefully, and I realized that I had never seen a woman lead before. It was as well that she dared, for I remembered none of the steps and my coordination was poor. Besides, my attention was turned to her cousin's song. He sang a Sindarin hunting lay, the likes of which I had heard the slaves of Angband sing as they labored in the forges. Sometimes, the orcs would turn cruel, and cut off their tongues. I wondered where he had learned the lay from. It was Sindarin as Thingol sang it, with old and curling consonants. The woman in the keep had been Thingol's sister. 

"Here, dance with my cousin," Artanis commanded, when the song ended. She picked up a lute and began plucking a soulful tune. 

"A note more cheerful, perhaps?" Maedhros asked. She plucked a tune shrill, contrary. 

"Have it as you wish!" He exclaimed. "Húrin, would you like to lead?"

"Is that one of your coynesses?" I asked, good-humored. I had never danced with a man before. I scarce remembered how to dance with a woman. "I cannot."

"Oh, very well, then," he said, sounding put upon, though his smile gave him away. He clasped my hands and directed them to his waist, and brought his hand to my shoulder. I was reminded of how he had taught me buggery, refusing to lead even when I had been terrified to hurt him. 

Artanis began playing a merry tune, that reminded me of the pastorals which had adorned Fingon's tapestries in Barad Eithel. Maedhros was focused on the music, directing me to its waves and crests and vales, easily following my steps, relaxed in my arms, trusting in my footwork and rhythm. Shaking my head at his coy feints and sleights of hand, I grasped his hips and spun him about boldly. Desire sparked in his eyes at my manhandling. Artanis set aside the lute and clapped her hands. 

"You are predictable," I teased him, feeling his heartbeat erratic against mine, delighting in how he flushed. 

That night, perhaps due to the dancing and the merriment, I felt his cock finally wake to arousal. 

"Have me," he demanded, drawing me to him. "I need you."

"You need a cock," I suggested, drawing his hand to my mouth and nipping at his fingers. 

"I need _your_ cock," he said plainly. "There is no dearth of cock in Belfalas. You are fortunate that I am particular."

"Oh, hush, my dearest," I said, kissing him into silence, tiring of words. He turned gladly under my hand, offering me his back unguarded, parting his legs at my touch. He had placed a vial of oil beside the bedding, meticulous in his planning as ever. I grinned at his thoroughness, and poured the oil into him. 

He reared at the warmth, at the novelty of it. 

"Quiet, or Artanis will never let you live this down," I reminded him. 

"Silence me then!" He exclaimed. "You cannot expect me to be quiet. It has been decades!"

"It has been decades since I have heard you cry out my name in passion," I agreed. "I have little incentive to keep you quiet, Maedhros." 

I entered him with a single thrust, and he tightened about me in reaction, startled. I remembered how easily he had taken my fingers and cock once, after weeks to become accustomed to our carnal interludes. He was unchanged in this, fierce and responsive, easily unravelling when I gave him all the force and strength I had in my frail body, calling my name a few times before turning inarticulate, his eyes clenched tight in passion's grip, his hand curled about the bedding. I spilled into him, and pressed between his shoulders to keep him prone. 

"Do you want me to rub myself raw on the bedding?" He asked, querulous. "These are not the silken sheets of Himring!" 

"Spoiled princeling," I said, cherishing his dudgeon, before nipping down his spine to his hips, and then curving about his buttock and thigh to come to his testicles. 

"Oh!" He exclaimed, voice cracking in pleasure when I took them into my mouth, one after the other, laving and suckling, and then gently nipping at the flushed, warm skin. He had a disinclination towards putting my mouth on his cock, I remembered, and veered well clear. Instead, I spent long minutes on his testicles, until they drew tight and heavy, nearing his climax. 

"Turn around," I demanded, flipping him by the hips. The manhandling made his cock jerk in response. 

"Tell me if you are uncomfortable," I ordered, and lay between his legs, to wrap my long beard about his cock. He keened, wiped of self-possession; his thighs drew tight and corded as he thrust into my grip. When he spilled, his stomach was drawn in and his back arched off the bed in a lovely curve that I wished I could engrave in stone.   
  
"Your brother cannot do this," I told him, when he had caught his breath and a semblance of coherence. 

His laughter was startled and melodious, creasing his face into loveliness, and I watched him come to my arms, washed in moonsilver and joy. 

Aure entuluva, I thought, even if the day had become night. 

\------

"Your husband is loitering about," Maedhros called to his cousin, from the window. 

"A better sight than the peaks you were fond of brooding over," Artanis called back, refusing to stir from her splay on the decadent ottoman Maedhros had had wrought by Celebrimbor, their nephew. 

"Your husband is more fearsome than those volcanoes," Maedhros commented dryly, peering through the window. "Oh dear, he is hassling my household guard again. At least, he has left his sword behind this time. Shall I send for him? He seems to be in a pleasant temper." 

"It is Celeborn. He shall insult you, and insult me by proxy, and tell us all about the upstandingness of his people."

"That shall not be novel to us now, will it?" Maedhros remarked. "Let me send for him. Tell him that you mean to stay for the summer."

"I am not leaving after that too," she said, sulking. "You cannot send me away, cousin. I am only a woman and the world is full of beasts."

"Tell him that you mean to stay, then!" Maedhros exclaimed. "Give the man an answer before he sets up camp in our courtyard."

Celeborn entered, impeccably attired, wearing a circlet of gold and gemstones. I was reminded of Thorondor courting. 

"Prince Maedhros," he said courteously. "Lord Húrin, Lady Galadriel." 

"We are honored to have your company," Maedhros replied formally. "May I send for refreshments?"

Celeborn glared before schooling his expression to politeness again. 

"I am in a hurry. Perhaps another time. I came to request that Galadriel accompanies me back home to Doriath. Our child misses her mother."

"I mean to stay the summer," Artanis said quietly, resolute. "I have missed the sea." 

His expression crumpled into disappointment, but he held himself tall and took his leave. 

"Why couldn't you have married a biddable man?" Maedhros wondered.

"Name one!" She exclaimed, throwing up hands in frustration. 

"Telpe!" He said immediately. "You would have made an excellent match."

Celebrimbor, their nephew. I had never met him, but I had heard that he was a kind soul.

"We are as brother and sister," Artanis said distastefully. "I have never wanted to see his testicles." 

\---------

I began taking long walks along the cliffs. The gulls spooked me often, reminding me of the enemy's carrion. When I saw ship's lights, I saw the enemy's forges. The sea calmed my mind, slowly. I began sensing his malevolence and the deeds it suggested to me. 

"Perhaps I should not be out and about," I said, one night, after we had engaged in intimacies. 

Maedhros hummed, raking his hand through the hair on my chest. 

"It is wise to perhaps avoid the marketplace," he concurred. "They are a prurient sort there."

His reluctance to be stared at had not lessened over the years. I bit back a smile at his obliviousness when it came to how easily he drew attention and attraction.

A few days later, as I took my walk by the cliffs, I espied Artanis with her husband on the beach below. 

"I will remain with him until the matter of Húrin is dealt with," she was explaining. "His health is flagging, and someone must keep him company."

"Why is Húrin his concern?" Celeborn demanded. "The House of Hador was sworn to Barad Eithel, not to him."

"Húrin was unable to enter Gondolin. Turkáno may wear the crown, but he has no means to offer refuge outside his girdle of mountains."

Turgon had written to me a few times, as had Glorfindel and Melian. I had left the letters unopened, in self-loathing, ruing the doom I had dragged to their doorsteps.

\-----

"Can Gondolin fall?" I asked one night, at supper. 

Artanis looked up warily, saying, "Not unless it is betrayed. You have lived there, Húrin. You must know." 

"Turkáno wed his daughter to your nephew, to Húor's son, Tuor," Maedhros said then. 

"The girl loved her cousin, Maeglin," I said, surprised. Turgon had tried to marry her to one of us, when Húor and I had been his guests. He had finally wedded her to one of our sons. I wondered why he had been keen to unite our blood. 

"There is a prophecy that of his line and yours will be born an heir that the Valar may take mercy on," Maedhros commented. "Turkáno has a grandson, Earendil. I sent the boy a toy ship as his birthing gift."

Turgon's daughter made no meek bride, I suspected. Had she come to believe in the prophecy her father clung to? Did she bide her time and wait for her chance to strike free? And what of Maeglin? He had nursed his love for her, for many decades. 

"The union seems unwise," I opined. 

"Oh, throwing armies to rout was unwise too," Artanis said, barbed in her accusation. 

"Come now, Turkáno cannot claim my excuse of madness."

"You aren't mad. You pretend that you are, when it suits you best," Artanis cut in, amused. 

\-------- 

One morning, early at dawn, I was about to set out to the cliffs, when I saw Artanis in the courtyard, alone, eyes red from weeping. 

"What is it?" I asked her, worried that her husband might have picked an argument with her again. 

"I received news of the deaths of my brothers, and uncles, and cousins, after their passing. The tidings were cruel, but final," she said quietly. "I have to watch Russandol die before my eyes."

"You came because you feared," I stated. 

"Yes, I feared...I know that he will not die in battle."

"Morgoth meant to end him in Angband. He survives yet. You must not worry over him. He has ever been resourceful."

"He has neither allies nor armies left, Húrin. The age of heroes is over." 

My son had been the last of them. 

"Fingon once told me that your family's war could not be won by armies." 

"That was because he intended to send his army to massacre at his cousin's sayso!" Artanis muttered. "Findekáno was the only one who believed in Russandol's soothsaying. He did also believe fully that our cousin was an excellent strategist. Love blinded him. Please tell me that you have not begun to believe his dooms and portents."

I remembered Fingon facing Gothmog, true and brave. He had believed in Maedhros's foresight, when none of us had. 

"I don't know that it is foresight, Artanis," I said honestly. 

She did not reply, lost to her musings. Then, suddenly, apropos of nothing, she said, "Morwen ever spoke of how kind you were as a husband. She said that you did not stray from her bed. You did not raise your voice in anger or strike her."

"It was a marriage," I said. Then it struck me why she must have been spurred to ask. I had grown out of practice in reading between the lines of conversation. "You are afraid that Celeborn will not esteem you one day."

"He forgets to do so now, frequently," she muttered, twisting a coil of her about her hands in frustration. "I will be alone one day. I shall not have family to run to. What then?"

I felt pity take root in me. 

After my release from captivity, I had been unable to resonate with a stranger's care. Artanis, I had not known in the days before. Perhaps all was not lost, I thought desperately, if I could still feel in my heart pity for her. Perhaps my mind was my own too, even if it was Morgoth's first. 

Quietly, I said, "You should tell Maglor or Turgon." Maedhros, as we both knew, was unreliable when it came to matters of the present. Then, even if I was wildly overstepping, I told her, "Turgon would make a good husband. Maglor, too, though I hear he is married."

"Macalaurë and I were lovers in our youth. I could not bear his love for his brother. It supersedes all." She scowled. "Now I pity them both, because they have danced about their truth for millennia. Men!" Then she continued, "Turkáno was a good husband to Elenwe. She died on the Ice. I fear, however, that Turkáno has grown paranoid after the crown came to him."

"I shall learn to suffer my husband," she said softly, then. "I love him, after all, and he was my choice."

When we returned to break our fast, we found Maedhros in high spirits. 

"A letter from Macalaurë?" Artanis asked wryly. 

"There is one for you too," he replied.

Then he looked at me and continued, "And one for you too."

I opened Maglor's letter, curious as to what he had to tell me. 

  
_Lord Húrin,_

_My brother tells me that you are rapidly returning to yourself._

_It is the first time, Artanis tells me, that he has smiled without care since the war. His sleep was broken for years until your return. He dreamed of that wretched battle, of Findekáno and of you. He dreamed of the woman he hesitates to speak of under morning's eye. It is unusual for him to dream of the past. His nightmares are often of the future. I feared for him. His strength shattered in a matter of weeks after the war, and no healer or medicine was able to restore it._

_I had begun preparing for the worst. I came to Ereinion, our Crown Prince, to seek his counsel on the matter._

_Then I received Turkáno's epistle that you had been returned to us. I hoped that it might restore my brother's spirits._

_My recent letters from him are full of joy. I am more grateful than I can express, Lord Húrin. I was grateful three decades ago, when his horse came to me bearing him, heeding your words. He had been reckless that day, riven by grief, and I had feared that he might throw himself into Angband's hands. He has loved his valiants, and I am glad that you are returned to us for there has been a dearth of valiants in recent times to draw his smile forth._

_Gratitude, perhaps, is also venomous, for I feel compelled to write to you of thralls._

_When I was bereaved and in mourning, I would go seeking thralls in my uncle's prisons, to beseech them for news of my brother. Some of them ranged from incoherence to ravings. Some of them, however, would begin to show signs of recovery. We would see them restored to their families. And then we would be summoned by alarmed neighbors for the thrall had been overtaken by Morgoth's sorcery, and had murdered their kin before committing suicide. Later, when Russandol returned, he demanded that we put an end to our practice, that thralls must not be reunited with their kin, that we had best put them to sword or imprison them in kindness._

_My uncle was unhappy with this, for he had feared, we had feared, that Russandol might be one of them, wandering in another's land, and we had wanted him to be shown the kindnesses we had shown the thralls we found. Russandol explained then of the dastardly sorcery of Morgoth, as to how it lay in wait to claim its victims, as to how it took exultation in kin slaying kin, in lovers harming each other, in brother betraying brother._

_One of our cousins, Angarato, was concerned then for what sorcery Morgoth may have placed on my brother. He was of the true line of the High Kings. He would rule, even if he did not bear the crown. What devisings of the enemy lay cloaked in his mind, waiting to strike at the heart of the Noldor cause? Had our love for him blinded us to the enemy's deceptions?_

_There was in him a white fire after his return, and it has blazed in him since. Perhaps it is the enemy's sorcery, Angarato feared. Nothing that we saw in the years following indicated that Morgoth had his mind. However, as he often is fond of remarking, we have never wanted to see. We wanted him back, and he did his utmost to give us our wish._

_You must exercise caution, for yourself and for those that surround you. Both my brother and Artanis are strong-willed and blind to treachery that is close to their home and heart._

_I have faith in Lord Húrin of Dor-lómin, who saved my brother once and twice and thrice and seventy-six times, as "Aure entuluva!" resounded on a plain of blood."_  


\-----------

"What did my brother have to say?" Maedhros asked, as we retired after supper. "You have been pensive." 

Pensive. I had once used the word to describe Maedhros to my brother, when I had been flush with first love's bloom. 

"I brought you spider's venom, from one of Ungoliant's children," he said then. I was startled from my musings by his statement. 

"An old tale. As you know, Ungoliant was Melkor's lover once. She gave birth to the first Balrogs." 

Gothmog had been their first child. 

"How did you procure the venom?" I asked, alarmed. The woods where her children lived were known for ghosts and shades, raving, as they lured the traveller to the belly of the beasts. 

"Peace! I am not inclined to valor. I have not ridden anywhere without my guards since we crossed the sea," he said hastily, seeing the worry in my eyes. "And in this case, I bribed one of the Edain to lead a quest."

"What for?" I asked, puzzled. He pushed me to the bedding and straddled me. 

"Patience, or you shall not have my story," he warned. 

"You are aroused," I noted gleefully. 

It was rare. I refused to bugger him unless his cock was hard, afraid that the pleasure might be one-sided. He had protested, but I had held firm. We restricted ourselves to other manners of carnality on those occasions. This meant that whenever he displayed an inkling of arousal, I was keen to exploit it. 

"If only you were not resolute in waiting for the blue moon when my cock stirs, you could have me everyday, as often as you please!" He grumbled. 

"Tell me your tale of venom," I said, having little wish to have that argument again. 

"Ungoliant began consuming light and soul, and Melkor fought her when she demanded the Silmarilli. He screamed, for he nearly was defeated by her, paralyzed by her venom, and his pained voice resounds in the plains of Lammoth yet. The Balrogs came to their father's aid, because he was their master, and drove her away. They could not slay her. Melkor could not slay her; she was one of the primordials, created not by Eru, but born of chaos."

I listened to him, fascinated. There was a creature then in Arda that Morgoth truly feared, that could defeat Morgoth. 

"The venom of the spiders that are her children, while diluted in power, is nevertheless potent. It may not suffice to kill a God, but it shall suffice to break his sorcery."

"You found a way!" I exclaimed, joyful. I clutched him close and pressed scattered kisses to his cheeks and brow, exultant. "Oh, you found a way!"

"It shall be exceedingly painful," he warned me, though there was an answering brightness in his eyes. 

"Use it," I told him firmly. "I wish to be rid of him." 

The venom sent flames through my blood, and boils broke on my skin. Artanis lanced each of them patiently, even as new ones soared forth. They had placed a bit between my teeth so that I would not bite my tongue and choke on blood. Love seized my heart whole when I smelled poultices. The nets of venom entered my flesh, my soul, and encountered the sorcery of their mother's treacherous lover. I screamed, voiceless, and thrashed in my bonds. I heard Maedhros asking Artanis to turn away from the terrible sight. 

She began to sing a lay of Dor-lómin, of my people, in a language I had forgotten. Túrin had sung it to Nienor, in their brief years of joy, and she had danced in joy by burbling brook. It had been the kindest sight Morgoth had shown me, though he had only wanted to mock their love and its unnaturalness. The shackles of him about my soul fell away, cleansed by venom of his children, cleansed by my love for my poor children. 

When I came to, I found myself exhausted, parched, and aching. The chamber smelled of blood and herbs. Maedhros sat beside me, watching, and there was curiosity in his gaze matching his relief. 

"No, you are not to try poisoning the Gods," I forbid him in a slurred voice. 

He laughed, and bent to press a kiss to the raw skin on my brow. 

"Merely musing on the nature of the primordial," he said, off-handedly. 

If I had the endurance, I might have brought myself to fret over the sparkle of knowledge in his eyes. 

"I will write to your brother," I threatened, and fell asleep. 

\--------

The days that followed were troubled. 

Without Morgoth's sorcery as a barrier, grief ran in me unchecked. I wept for Morwen and for my children. I wept for my brother. My nights were riddled by dreams where they came to me accusing. I had failed them. I had seen them suffer for no reason but that I had defied Morgoth. " _You saved your princes and doomed us to endless suffering_ , Morwen said, spectral and old, as she pointed her finger of blame at me. 

The joy that I had come to find once more, in Artanis's friendship and in my renewed intimacy with Maedhros, had fled me in entirety. Instead, I loathed myself for daring to rebuild when I had condemned my family. 

The extremis of physical exhaustion led to frustration, and I often lashed out at the most trivial of conversations. 

Artanis refrained from enquiries and read to me instead. Perhaps she had had enough of erratic men after her experiences with her husband. 

Maedhros took the brunt of my temper swings, tending to me patiently, even if it was clear to me that he was out of his depth. 

I yelled at him wildly when he came to share my bed, saying that there was little purpose when I was unwell and his cock had given up on him. I shouted at him when he failed to come the next night, demanding that he prove his attraction to me. 

\------

"May I assist you?" He asked, when he stepped in to my chamber one day to find me struggling to dress myself. 

"This is a job for two hands."

He inhaled sharply, and I saw he had not expected me to speak so cruelly. I did not say anything, for rage frothed in me, and I was afraid to cut him further. 

"You are angry with me," he said cautiously, crossing the threshold into my chamber and closing the doors behind us. "May I know why?"

"I should not have saved you!" I shouted, as the levee of self-control broke. "I should have left you to Gothmog! Fingon should have left you to rot on the rocks! Elerrína should not bought you life at the cost of hers! You have ruined everyone that loved you!"

He was stricken.

I continued, unable to cease. "My wife, my brother, my children, my people! Beleriand! Kings and kingdoms fell to your madness! Your uncle should have executed you, as he executed every other thrall that he did not love. You could not protect even your own family! Why did any of us trust you with ours?"

"And love! You cannot know what is to love! You have never loved any of us, you have never loved as I have, as Fingon and Maglor have!" 

"I wish you had never lived," I said finally, quietly, trembling where I stood. "I wish you were dead. I wish I had never laid my eyes on you." 

He shook his head, horror stark on him, and turned abruptly to leave the rooms.

\-------------

After I had calmed, I dragged my tunic and breeches on, and flung my cloak about my shoulders, and made to follow him. 

I heard from the guards that he had made for the cliffs, in haste, demanding that he remain undisturbed until his return. Artanis was out at the markets. So I could not send her after him.

When I arrived at the cliffs, I saw him perched on a precarious outcrop, cross-legged, sea-facing. He did not have his cloak about him. Cursing, I dragged myself up the rocks, wondering how he had navigated with three limbs when I struggled to do so with four. 

He had not heard me approach, and I worried when I clasped his shoulder and he jerked away, fearful. 

"It is only me," I gentled him, turning his face to me, and stilled when I saw the redness of his eyes and the tears on his face. "I didn't mean any of it, Maedhros."  
  
He did not reply. I remained with him for hours, witless to speak apologies that might mend. As the moon turned east, he drew his legs up, pressed his face to his knees to obscure, and trembled quietly as he wept. I removed my cloak and wrapped it about him, and left him alone.

In the early hours of the morning, I heard Artanis fetch him home. I did not step out, even if I wanted to ensure that he was well. 

The next day, after breaking our fast in quiet, but for Artanis's conversation, Maedhros asked to speak with me in his quarters. He had been restored to composure, even if his pallor was alarming. 

He led me to his quarters without speaking. After I had closed the doors behind us, he went to the window to stare at the cliffs. The quicksilver changes of his expression gave away his reluctance to begin the conversation and his determination to speak nevertheless. With a sharp inhale, he nodded to himself, and turned to me.

"These conversations to mend brokenness are not my forte," he said warily. "I wish to. I wish to heal our rapport." 

I felt tears gather in my eyes, touched by his desire to see us mended despite my cruelty. 

"I cannot know your grief as you wish I could," he admitted. "I have not taken a wife or sired children." Then he added, hesitantly, "I cannot deny that I have brought ruin to you, even if it was not of my making."

"Leave it be," I urged, going to him, hating the pain in his voice. "You have done your best, but you are only a man, and your war is with Gods. You may be ruthless, but you are not driven by malice." 

"You spoke true when you wished you had never crossed paths with me," he said, staving me off when I made to touch him. "Know that I have never wished any of it upon you." 

He sighed, raking his hand over his face in exhaustion. "I have loved you, from the limits of my inadequacies. I have been drawn to those expressive and brave of heart; it is a draw to the opposite, to what is not in my nature and temperament." 

Then I understood why he loved his brother the most. Maglor was expressive and brave of heart, and had never voiced a desire for equal reciprocation. Maglor knew to read his brother's deeds. He knew why his brother had held the mad defenses of the pass of Aglon, to buy him time to retreat in the Battle of the Sudden Flame. He knew why Maedhros had refused to die on the Thangorodrim, that he might not abandon his family. He knew why Maedhros had left their relationship unconsummated and silent for millennia, so that Maglor was not burdened by sexual expectations he did not find himself drawn to. 

I remembered how wild and broken Maedhros had been when he came to find Fingon's corpse. They had loved too, and Fingon had been resigned to the inequalities of their heart's natures. 

Turgon had refused me entry or aid, afraid of Morgoth's sorcery. So had Melian. Maedhros, even if he knew the dangers better than either of them, had not given up on me, had taken me to his home, had given me refuge and friendship, had trusted me to overcome Morgoth's sorcery. He had not held me a prisoner. He had not barred me from his cousin or his household. He had gladly given himself in intimacy. 

When I had wanted to do away with myself, he had not refused me. He had not persuaded me to choose life. Instead, he had found the means to assist me to break down Morgoth's sorcery, so that I was in my own mind when I made the choice to end my life. He had nursed me through my recovery, unflinching when I had mocked him or lashed out at him.

Faulting him for his nature was cruelty. Even if no doom burdened him, I doubted that he could change his nature, that he would turn expressive and fierce in how he spoke of his heart. 

I had been cruel. I had never been cruel in speech to Morwen or to my children, or to my brother or my people. 

"I have wronged you," I told him, and offered him my hand. He clasped it, with fingers trembling. 

"Recovery is an intense and intimate process," he said quietly. "It is not unexpected."

It was not unexpected, perhaps, but my words had struck him cruelly. He had wept through the night, shattered by what I had spoken. 

"Did you act so when you were recovering?"

His lips quirked in the ghost of a smile. "No. My nature is not given to it. My emotional variations tend to be internalized instead of being vocalized, and affects my constitution and sleep."

Perhaps his nature had held him sane. He was even-keeled and mellow, not given to wailing and raving. Even if he were mad, I doubted anyone would truly know. Had he found it difficult to fit in his family? They were proud men and women, wearing their hearts on their sleeves boldly. 

He took my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to my knuckles. 

"I regret the harm knowing me has brought to you," he reiterated.   
  
"It was my heart's choice to love you," I said tiredly, drawing him to me. "And neither fate's calamity nor sorcery's enthrallment have changed my heart."

\------

That night, I went to him, and found him restless and awake.

"You have decided," he said, sitting up to look at me.

I had. 

"I cannot live for you, but if I were stronger in will, I would have gladly chosen to." 

"Húrin, I cannot-" he swallowed. "You have decided," he repeated, mustering his courage as he ever had. "When?"

"Summer's end."

\--------

Four weeks. 

I told Artanis, and she retreated to her thoughts silently afterwards. 

A day later, she came to me, and said, "I fear for him." 

"I fear for him too," I admitted. "If I must cut, I must cut sharply and resolutely. It is cruel to linger, fraying." I took her hands in mine. "Fingon had faith in him once, when none else did. I have faith in him now. And after I am gone, his brother and you must. He will not live to see his work completed. You must keep faith. You must finish what he began."

Let it not all have been in vain, I prayed, to a God I hoped was kinder than those I knew the names of. 

Artanis. She had his ruthlessness. She had his endurance. If he were to fall, the mantle must be hers. Turgon and Maglor and the rest of his brothers would not outlive him, I feared. 

\-------

"I understand why you cannot encourage Artanis to leave her husband," I told Maedhros, as I combed his hair before bed. The curls, insubordinate to wind and hand, nevertheless fell compliant under my comb. 

"He is her best chance at survival," Maedhros noted. "The Valar will not touch her if she is married to him, if she has forsworn our house for his. He is not a cruel man by nature, even if he is not the husband her father would have wed her to, in kinder days." 

"She knows why she cannot leave him," I said. "She is not a fool." 

"I have been ruminating on forbearance and forgiveness," he said then. The vulnerability in his voice was stark. 

I set aside the comb and wrapped my arms about his waist, pressing his back to my chest. 

"My uncle-" he paused, weighing his words with care. "My family has extended their forbearance to me, again and again. So have you." He paused again, before saying softly, "My uncle once told me that forbearance is not forgiveness. He had granted his forbearance to my father, but not his forgiveness." His pulse had leapt in agitation against my lips pressed to his nape. I closed my eyes in sorrow, knowing what he sought. 

"I am grateful for the forbearance," he whispered, voice thin and yet fervent. "I wish for forgiveness too."

What was forgiveness? Was it mending of relations? Was it trust renewed? Was it a restoration of love? What was forgiveness, to Artanis who would inherit his mantle, and wage war alone? What was forgiveness, to Fingon who had willingly let his kingdom fall and his people to defeat? What was forgiveness, to Morwen and Húor, to my children, to the knaves caught between matters of the Gods? 

"It is a craven, senseless plea, I know," he said faintly, voice tearing, frame trembling in my embrace. "If I were wrong-"

"Hush!" I commanded, silencing him. "If you were wrong, you will have been the only one who dared. And that is of immeasurable worth, to inspire those, who, after us, are ruined by the Wars of the Powers."

"I am frightened," he confessed, to the darkness, to the moonlight, to the man who readied to die at summer's end. "I wish I had been born to another womb. I wish I had died defending my grandfather. I wish this had come to someone else."

I had once fancied that I had alleviated his loneliness, because I had seen Angband. How could I have fathomed the span of it? 

"Your grandmother chose to die," I told him, brutally honest at the end. "Your grandfather chose to live in ignorance. Your father and uncles saw the signs, but failed to learn that theirs crowns were baubles before the Gods. The cause was theirs before it became yours. It became yours because they had failed. It remains yours because you have not failed. Morgoth hunts you because he knows that."

We had tired of the Valar, on Arda. We had tired of piety and unanswered prayers. We had tired of burying our dead in unmarked mounds. We had shed unnumbered tears and found that new griefs followed old ones. 

Perhaps Sauron had tired of the Valar too. Perhaps that was why he had shielded Elerrína, risking his master's wrath. 

Morgoth would hunt Artanis after her cousin's death. However, I sensed that Maedhros would not cease his life's breath before Morgoth's destruction. He would set the board for Artanis. 

"Your war is not for your family," I said, struck by epiphany. 

It was for all of us who had been thrall, knave, or knight, caught between the grudges of the Gods. 

  
\-----------

Three weeks.

Our intimacies were frustrating to him. He counted down each day. My refusal to take him unless his libido awakened to it had begun exasperating him. 

"I want this!" He exclaimed, waving his hand for emphasis. "You have not minded that I am maimed. Why are you keen to predicate fucking me on the state of my virility?"

"There are other intimacies we find mutually pleasurable," I reminded him.

"Permit me then to consume an aphrodisiac if you wish me to harden and spill."

He had made that suggestion a few times, at his wit's end as to why I found it unpalatable. It was considered emasculating, though that had never fazed him before. I had no wish to force him to resort to artificial measures to address my discomfort. 

"What burdens you?" 

Three weeks. He was exhausted and disappointed. His suggestions had become more outre each day. 

"I am afraid to imitate what they had done to you, slaking my lust on you with no way to bring you pleasure."

His mouth went slack in shock, before he laughed, genuinely amused. 

"It is no laughing matter." 

I had little wish to be his rapist. 

"Lie back. Let me show you," he said, exasperated, eyes full of mirth still. He began stripping without ado, and knocked my hands off when I made to undress. 

"Stay clothed. This demonstration does not require your cock, or any part of you," he said cheekily, splaying himself on the bed, legs spread as he knew I found irresistible. 

He brought his fingers to his mouth and suckled on them, eyes lidded and darkening in desire under my hungry gaze. I made to touch him, from sternum to navel, but he shook his head, driving me into frustration at the temptation he made.   
  
It worsened then. He lifted a leg, and planted it flat on the foot, opening his body to me. His fingers came to penetrate him, with little care to teasing or form. His cock leaked, even if it remained soft, as he began to caress himself inside. His breath stuttered and his eyes slid shut, as he obscenely touched himself, opened to my gaze. He increased the tempo, until his cock was smearing his thighs, and when he stilled, replete, his stomach and thighs and groin were wet. 

Overwhelmed by his self-pleasure, I fished my cock from my breeches. Then I grabbed the nearest vial of oil and emptied it on my cock, and pressed hard into him, sure and smooth, and his insides fluttered about me in shock. I grabbed him by the waist and sat him straddled on me.

"For the next three weeks, I don't want you touching yourself so," I ordered, delighting in the flush of his cheeks at the manhandling. 

"If you will not lower yourself to fucking me, I am within liberty to do as I please," he replied, mischief glinting bright in his eyes, bringing his hand to my shoulder for balance as I drove him up and down. 

I paused my motion, and said charmingly, "Well, if you were truly desperate for my cock, show me now. Ride me." 

He shook his head and buried his face in my shoulder in mortification. 

"Go on," I suggested, holding still. "It is a little late to be shy. You were stuffing yourself full of fingers scant moments before, and leaking throughout."

"Don't carry on so!" He demanded, beginning to ride me, voice riven by need.

"Oh, but you enjoy it," I teased him, pressing kisses to his brow and shoulders and neck, exulting in his cries of ecstasy as he drove himself deeper onto me. His cock was wet between us, and when I took it into my palm, he bit my shoulder to stifle his moan. It was strange and I feared to hurt him, but it was him, and I forgot the strangeness of it quickly when his muscles began contracting and clenching, arrhythmic, and fresh wetness stained my belly. I held him still, and suggested lewdly, "I will place a cork in you should you dare touch yourself before my eyes again." He quivered in my hold, affected by my words, and it sent me spilling into him. 

"Are you well?" I asked, shifting him to the bedding and cleaning him up carefully. 

"If only you had been as obliging the first time I came begging you," he lamented, burying his head on my thigh, and falling promptly asleep.

I watched the moonlight paint him silver. 

\--------

Two weeks.

Knowing that he took pleasure in our couplings eased my anxieties about harming him. He unravelled easily, each time, warm and languid and sated afterwards, and his laughter resounded in my soul. 

I began to dare, and he let me, willingly giving himself unto my whims. 

I left him blindfolded and muffled for three hours once, after fucking him and leaving him open with my spend leaking out of him. When I returned, he was frenzied, demanding that I see to him again, robbed of composure and reserve, trembling in my arms in desire until I plucked him unspooled. 

Once, I forced him to straddle me, his back to my chest, facing a mirror, and gave him my fingers, spreading him to the mirror and my gaze, forcing him to behold himself until his stomach was sticky with seed.

\---------------------

"I miss my husband!" Artanis announced at supper, watching us both.

"Why?" I asked, before Maedhros cast me a warning glance. 

"I miss his cock," she confided, making me splutter the wine I had been sipping at. "Cousin, you seem to have been cured by cock."

"Goblins of my acquaintance were more well-spoken," he said, denying none of it. "Macalaurë would be horrified." 

Then he softened, and said, "If you wish for your husband's company, you should visit him."

"Summer's end," she said flatly. "And perhaps the turn of the year. I have not tired of fish and lobsters."  
  
I smiled at her in gratitude. She would remain with Maedhros after my death. 

I looked forward to my ending, even if I had found a measure of grace in him, in these latter days. The hollow left by Morgoth's sorcery remained in me. The pain in my limbs and gut and lungs had become constant companions. I would not draw sword again. I had neither kin nor cause left. I had tired of mourning. I was fortunate, that I had chosen my time, that I had chosen my means, that very few in Arda had the luxury to. 

"I shall be glad for your company this winter, Artanis," Maedhros said.

"I demand oysters as recompense," Artanis said firmly. "To family," she said brightly, raising her flute to him. 

"To friendships," I said, raising my flute in salute. If they had not sheltered me and nursed me, I would be wandering Arda with Morgoth's curse heavy on my soul.

"To forbearance," he said, clinking his flute against ours, and the wonder in his eyes sparkled brighter than the Silmarils. 

\------- 

One week.

"I was thinking of your father's Silmarils," I told him, combing his hair with my fingers as I held him to me after coitus. 

He hummed, clearly on the verge of sleep. While sexual intimacies brought lethargy in their aftermath to me, I found him utterly charming in how loose-limbed and sleep-cusped he became after a round of buggery. Perhaps it was his favorite, of all the intimacies we had shared. 

"The Silmarils," I said carefully. "When Morgoth held me captive, the jewels set in the crown on his head held a strange fire."

"My father wrought them of his soul." He yawned, pressing his nose into my palm and inhaling deeply of the scent of the olive oil I had used to prepare him earlier. "Melkor cannot possess the jewels, for they contain the Flame Imperishable. These are stories, and whether there be a kernel of truth in them remain unknown."

He nodded off, as I mused in silence.  
  
The white fire of the jewels ran in Maedhros. Perhaps the Silmarilli had reacted to his plight, and when the power of Morgoth had coursed through stone and bone and mind, it had paved too unto soul from jewel. 

In Ossiriand, bards sang of how the soul was Eru's breath, gifted from mother to child. _Psyche_ was Eru's breath. _Psyche_ was the fire of our soul. 

Had Míriel chosen to die to give her son soul's breath? Had Feanor chosen to pour his soul into the jewels so that his son may one day defy the Gods? Such fancifulness, I thought, smiling in the dark. My brother would have accused me of spending one hour too many in the company of the Noldor.

\-----------

"How do you mean to carry out your task?" Artanis asked, cornering me after breaking our fast. 

Maedhros had been pale and silent, and had retreated to attend to his correspondence with nary a word to us. 

"I leave tomorrow at dawn," I told Artanis. "I mean to walk into the ocean." 

"You mean to leave him to wake alone," she said, accusing, furious. "He has borne this tragedy as no man can! He has not withheld himself from you even as you numbered your days. Do him the courtesy of bidding him farewell!"

"I have no words, Artanis!" I exclaimed, horrified by the suggestion. "I could not bid him farewell with equanimity when I rode out of Himring as a lad. I could not bid him farewell with grace when I sent him away from the rout on the plains. I have no wish to be cruel."

"His days have been numbered since Thangorodrim. He will not care how eloquent and compassionate you are in bidding him farewell. You can be cruel only if you refuse him the chance to see you off."

See me off. 

Artanis, I was beginning to believe, would end his war and win. Her cold ruthlessness would see her through. I prayed that the cost to her heart was bearable. 

Seeing the pity and the fear on my face, she scowled, saying, "It is not as if there is anyone else to take on his cause!"

"It isn't that there is nobody else," I told her kindly. "He chose you because he has faith in you."

"I don't want you to take your life. I have come to be fond of you, Húrin of Dor-lómin."

Húrin was no longer of Dor-lómin.

"Take care of him tomorrow."

"I mean to stay until his brother returns from Ereinion's counsels."

\-----------

I wrote to Turgon, bidding him be well, conveying my felicitations to my nephew he had taken as law-son. 

I wrote to Glorfindel, thanking him for teaching me the sword, for it had allowed me to defend what I had loved the most. 

I wrote to Melian, thanking her for breaking me free for an instant from Morgoth's sorcery, and for sending me to Maedhros. 

I wrote, too, to Celeborn, requesting him to treat Artanis kindly, telling him that I mourned my wife everyday. 

I wrote to Maglor, and thanked him for serving as his brother's anchor over the ages. I told him of my choice. I wished that I had heard him sing once before my death. 

When I rose from my letters, it was late, veering close to an hour ere midnight. 

  
\-----------

Maedhros came to me then, wearing a tunic of velvet blue, threaded with teardrops of silver. Overwhelmed, I took him by the hand and led him to the cliffs by the sea. 

I laid him out on the moss that clung to the rocks, and under the full moon's bright, I stripped him to skin and loved him with all my heart's vigor. And when I beheld him then, he wore only my spend and the marks of my desperate clutches and kisses, and there was a strange peace in his moon-flecked eyes. 

I was weeping, I realized, in gladness and gratitude, that Thorondor had brought me to him once, that I had known him under the glaciers of Himring's peaks, that I had known him in meadows of wildflowers, that I had known him on plains of blood, that I had known him in his house by the cliffs in the waning of my life. 

He shifted about, questing in the pile of clothes, and pulled an apple from his cloak. The skin was red. It was one of the local cultivars. 

When he bit into it, I bent to kiss him, and the petrichor of him sparked bright over the sweetness of the fruit. 

"An apple for the road?" He asked quietly. 

I had once thought that dawn became him. Clad in moonbeams, he was brave and true, as he brought the apple to my hand in offering. 

"Go home," I told him, striving in vain to let my smile be untouched by tears. 

He did not weep. When he kissed me, at summer's end, it was soft and final, full of soulfire. 

Craven, I turned back when I reached the coastline. He remained on the cliffs, silent, with the moon behind him and the sun rising before him. 

"Aure entuluva!" I cried out to him, again and again, seventy-six times, until the waters silenced me.

\------


	3. Passim

**Act III: Passim**

"The dreams that pass through the gates of polished horn  
are fraught with truth, for the dreamer who can see them."

I mopped the sweat from the back of my neck and glared at sunless skies. It was an unusually warm day. I had meant to get the vines sheared in the eastern rows on the hill slope before the day's end. The heat had turned me sluggish, and in turn, poorly concentrated. I was furious with myself for the vines I had trimmed too close to their stem. It had taken years to learn to grow them from seed to stem to grape. The previous season had been been the first to bear fruit. There had been no harvest. There would not be for a few more seasons, according to the growers I had spoken to at the markets. And then, and then- 

The baying of hounds startled me. Mopping my forehead again, I set my shears aside and trudged past the trellises. From the hillslope, I could see them on the plains below, hounds and hunters both. There were four astride. I frowned and peered, trying to espy what they chased. There were only gazelles and foxes in these parts. With the clatter they made, they had little hope to snare these manner of creatures. I watched them canter towards the hills, their laughter as loud as the baying of their hounds.

Then the one clad in black, slender, straightened in saddle, and swiftly nocked an arrow, and speared a buck at two hundred yards. There was whooping and cheering. I shook my head, and returned to my vines. 

They came to my homestead, as hunters in these parts often did, for water and respite before their journey home. I would occasionally be inspired by kindness and set out bread for them. Made cranky by the heat and the four vines I had cut too close to stem, I was in poor spirits to tolerate company. 

Then I saw who was at the head of the company. 

"Húrin!" 

"High King Fingon," I said, stunned, watching him dismount hastily to come to me. He was plainly attired, and bore neither sword nor crown. 

"I carry only my name here," he said simply. 

If he was no king of war, what was he? 

"A friend of yours, brother?" 

A woman. Clad in black. She had been the one to shoot the buck. She was as tall as the men in her company, and her features were Maglor's. Brother. Aredhel Ar-Feiniel. 

One of their companions I recognized. Celegorm. He had been her lover before her death. He had mustered the retreat with his brothers on the bloody plains after Fingon's fall. 

The other resembled Maglor too. I had memories of having seen his portrait in Fingon's halls and Turgon's palace. 

"Húrin was the mightiest of the heroes of Arda," Fingon said. "He saved your brothers and cousins many a time in war and fray." He smiled brightly. "Húrin, this is my sister, Irissë. And this is my uncle, Fëanáro."

"Turkáno speaks of you often," Feanor said, offering his hand in greeting, uncaring of the dirt on my clothes and palms. "It is an honor to see you in the flesh, Húrin of Dor-lómin."

"I grow grapes," I said abruptly, reeling from having touched the mighty Feanor. 

"We had not intended to surprise you," Fingon said carefully, and there was understanding in his dark eyes. "We had not known that it was you that dwelt here."

"Turkáno's friend is our friend," the woman said then. "Come, brother, bring the buck in. Tyelko, could you dress the game? Let us celebrate new friendships. Let me see to a fire."

She was as Artanis then. Fondness seized my heart as I thought of the last friend I had made in Arda. I wanted to ask of her. I wanted to ask of someone dearer. I feared.

"Húrin?" Fingon was asking, concerned. "My sister means no imposition."

"I shall be pleased to feast with you," I said dumbly. 

Fingon grinned and came to embrace me, heedless of my state. Then again, I mused, numb in shock, their family had not been the pretentious sort. 

His uncle came to my side, and said helpfully, "The slope does not permit the water to reach your plants in equal proportion. You shall need to modify the plumbing."

It had been on my mind for a few months. I had not had the wherewithal to fetch a plumber from the villages to the west, having grown used to my solitude as I had. 

"Do you grow vines?" I asked, wondering how to react to the mighty Feanor speaking of plumbing. 

"My eldest does," he replied. He was as plain-spoken as Fingon, I was charmed to realize. "We made our home in low-lying lands. It is not a clime or soil suited to wine. He perseveres. Growing the crop to the land, instead of seeking the land for the crop; or so he claims." He laughed. "We have not minded his eccentricities. The wines are worthy and grace our table through the year." 

"He had wineyards in Himring," I recounted. "In the low-lands, in the marketplaces of Belfalas, after the war, after Himring had fallen, decades later, I saw the wine merchants selling amphoras of older wines he had grown on his cold mountains for exorbitant prices."

"Did you know Russandol well?" Feanor asked me, eyes sparkling in curiosity. 

Turgon spoke of me, his sister had said. They had made no mention of Maedhros knowing me. 

"He has forgotten," Feanor said hastily, seeing the grief carven on my face. "We have not attempted to speak to him of the past. Lethe suits him. We have not had the heart to temper his happiness." 

I swallowed. It was a gift they had chosen not to imperil. In their place, I would have done the same. Was it fair to him? He had taken me to him when I bore ill-fate. He had loved me even when I had made ready to die. He had watched me drown myself, and had stood unflinching, statued in grief against setting moon and rising sun. His war must have taken everything from him before the end. 

"The war he waged and won should not be forgotten," I said quietly, looking up at the sunless skies. "It was not for his family. It was for every knave caught between the Powers."

"Then let us remember it on his behalf," Feanor said. "His family could not protect him in Eru's creation. Will you deny us the chance to do so now?" 

Love was misguided often, I thought bleakly. 

We feasted. Fingon was in high spirits. His sister sang for us, her low voice husky and seductive against the fire's crackle. I had not eaten game for a long while. I did not enjoy dressing game and rubbing it down with spices. That had been my brother's task in our journeys. 

Celegorm laughed when I complimented him for how he had dressed and roasted the buck over the pitfire. 

"Irissë has ever been the better hunter," he confided, sending her a fond glance. "If I were to fail at this chore, she would have little purpose for my company on her hunts."

Aredhel laughed then, at something her uncle had said.

"Maglor?" I asked Celegorm. Surely he would not stand for obscuring the truth from his brother. Maglor had been unflinchingly honest. 

"We have not found him yet," Celegorm said.

Seeing my alarm, he hastened to add, "He was the last to die. He did not enter the void. Artanis is confident that he will arrive one day. While Maitimo remembers nothing, Artanis remembers all."

Artanis. She had inherited the war. She had seen it through to the end. I grieved for her. How long had she kept faith alone? 

"She was alone for two ages of the world. Macalaurë was alone for two ages of the world," Celegorm said, seeing the direction of my thoughts easily. "She remained on Arda. Macalaurë wandered alone, mourning, in grief, on Arda until Artanis sent him across the Sea. There, he was imprisoned in desolation by the Valar, robbed of voice. Then Artanis sailed, and they fought together, against the Gods, at the end of the old world, bringing dusk with them."

"How did he-"

"I cannot strive to explain it coherently," Celegorm confessed. "Maitimo fell into the Void with Morgoth. He was Morgoth's, for long ages of the world, in the lightless and endless void, as fate had once deeded. Perhaps they had never left each other's minds after their first duel in Angband. I cannot say. Artanis has speculations. Soulfire, the fire of the Silmarilli, broke the parting between Eru's world and the Void, and that between the Void and the Chaos without..." He sighed. "Maitimo lashed out when the primordial surged in, and Varda wept tears unnumbered." 

I was scared to dare imagine what he spoke of. I remembered Maedhros speaking to me of how Morgoth had been unable to defeat the primordial creature Ungoliant had been, of the raw powers beyond Eru's creation. He had never denied fate its due, for he knew too that destiny was what one made of fate's course. Keep faith, I had told Artanis, but I had failed to realize the staggering sweep and span of what she had been demanded to keep faith in. 

Later, at parting's time, Feanor came to me. 

"You must visit us. My brother keeps a good table. Turkáno is not fond of riding far from home. He fears calamity at every turn. Will you visit us to seek him?" 

* * *

Their lands were a few hours ride away. There were rivers and estuaries on the periphery of their fortress. 

The towns surrounding were large and the thoroughfares busy, reminding me of the murals on the walls of Gondolin and Barad Eithel, reminding me of the markets of Himring where Edain, Elf and Naugrim had freely mingled and held commerce. 

"Húrin!" 

It was Artanis. She rushed down the steps, bright and beaming, her lovely face showcasing her pleasure upon seeing me. I caught her in my embrace, and bent to allow her kiss to my cheek. 

I had no sisters. The only woman I had known had been my wife. As Artanis took my arm and led me into her home, I began to once more envy the easy tactility their family had. 

"Come, come, let me take you to Turkáno!"

We found Turgon in the library, writing sedately. He looked up, and joy rose to his features. Hastily setting aside parchment and quill, he came to us.

"He means to publish the lore of us," Artanis whispered. "His oration was boring. I cannot imagine his writing shall fare better."

"I heard you!" Turgon muttered. "Unhand Húrin! He was my friend before he became yours!" 

"I made a truer friend!" Artanis held pertly. "I drained him of Ungoliant's venom!"

"Gore is no bond," Turgon retorted. He came to embrace me, stilted as he ever was when it came to showing his affection, and yet genuine. 

"Húrin," he said, with a shy grin, running his hand through his hair in awkwardness. So he had been clumsy once, before he had frozen taciturn. "Let me take you to my father. When Findekáno came back with the tidings, we were overjoyed."

Luncheon turned out to be a noisy affair. There was game. The table reminded me of the one at Himring, with waterfowl and wine and fruit. 

"Father! Russandol!" Turkáno said, dragging me to the head of the table. 

Fingolfin sat at the head, smile benevolent and warm, as he rose to greet me. To his right sat Maedhros, and his expression mirrored his uncle's so closely that I began to see why lore had spoken of their closeness of spirit in war and rule and family. 

"We are overjoyed to host you," Fingolfin greeted me. "Artanis and Turkáno have been speaking of you ceaselessly since Findekáno spoke to us of the tidings."

"Thank you for saving our family," Maedhros said politely. "Turkáno spoke to us of your valor and mighty deeds."

When I took his hand in mine, I noticed it was his right hand that he offered. So he had not been left-handed once. I had often wondered. He frowned in concern, when I stilled, overwhelmed by the sight of him. Had I hoped that he might remember, once he beheld me? 

"Come, sit beside me!" Artanis demanded then, dragging me to the seat next to hers. "Turkáno, you can duel me if you want Húrin's company."

"Far be it from me!" Turgon muttered, sitting across us for the meal.

I made acquaintance of Artanis's brother, Finrod. Turgon and Artanis drew me into their conversations, and Finrod cheerfully asked me about my doings on my hillslope. 

"Wine? Oh! Russandol grows wine! Cousin! You must show him your vineyards and presses!" Finrod turned to confide to me. "He enjoys showing them off, but we prefer to imbibe the results than to discuss the process. His oratory on the subject gives Turkáno a run for his money when it comes to cultivating boredom in the listener." 

The wine they had poured was young, bubbling, white. It bore little resemblance to the dry and complex reds that had been served from Himring's vineyards, which my brother had been fond of. 

"Has he tired of the reds?" I asked Artanis, who was stealing cheese from her brother's plate and transferring carrots over without compunction. 

"Oh, he grows them. Our uncle refuses to serve them with waterfowl. We despair of convincing him that red wine pairs with more than beasts that tread the earth with four hooves."

"Artanis!" Fingolfin called down the table. "We shan't have fish for supper should you persist in your creative methods to get rid of the vegetables on your plate."

"My husband kept me in berries, greens and tubers!" She complained. "I have a legitimate reason to develop a fanatical dislike!"

"You married him for his cock," Aredhel noted. "You said it was the biggest you had ever seen."

"I learned my lesson. An inch more is not worth trading meat for," Artanis muttered, scowling. 

"I told you not to marry him. Here," Finrod said, placing on her plate the heart of the fowl. Her eyes lit up in enthusiastic gratitude. 

"We must not scandalize our guest!" Fingolfin called out, sternly glaring at Aredhel and Artanis. "Húrin, I apologize on their behalf. We are not used to dining with guests."

I remembered how unreserved Maedhros was once his initial wariness had ceased. It had been so for Turgon too. Artanis was no different. I had seen their family interact with each other, and was not surprised that their ways had carried over to this land under the sunless skies. 

After the luncheon, Artanis dragged me to Maedhros. 

"Father told me that you have vineyards!" He said enthusiastically, eyes bright in excitement. "May I ask you to tour our vines with me? I am curious as to your opinions. There are some creative changes we have had to make to the traditional growing and harvest in order to accommodate for-"

"Shut up, Russandol." Artanis pressed a kiss to her cousin's cheek and laughed when he drew her to him in a swift scoop. "Off with you. Húrin, yell for help if you need a rescue from his monologue about cultivars and clime and irrigation." 

He took me to the slopes. 

"The elevation is artificial," he explained. "These were low-lying flats. It required engineering to change the landscape to this." He grinned at me, proud and pleased by his achievements. Had I ever seen him so? "I was able to convince my father to help me reconstruct the land." He winked. "Father did not believe that it would aid the vines, mind you! He extended his forbearance and held his silence until the first vintage was brought to our table four years later. He then demanded that he be allowed naming rights for every vintage. He names them after ores and stones." Maedhros shook his head. "Very few of us approve."

He flushed when he saw me staring at him, taken by his narration. I had seen him transformed before, on matters of rule and justice. This was the first time that I had seen him charmingly carry on with ebullient enthusiasm on a matter inconsequential. 

"I apologise! As my uncle said, we are not used to company outside our family. I had not meant to carry on so." 

"I have had little company over the years in my abode. I am used to reclusion and find myself struggling to assimilate myself in conversation," I explained to him. "I find your narration captivating." 

He had once held a dragon ensnared by his words, speaking fate. 

We continued our tour. He frequently derailed our journey, in his excitement to show me an improvisation here or there he had made to irrigation or planting, to insulation from the winds and from the pests of the fields. 

When he asked me for the umpteenth time about my opinions, I decided to swallow my fear of disappointing him, and said kindly, "Your father exaggerated my wine growing experiences. I have not harvested my first vintage yet."

"What inspired you?" he asked. "It is a laborious undertaking."

"I had a lover once," I confessed, looking at him, seeing the peace in his eyes, and noting how youthful he was without the fellness of fate and foresight touching him. "He had vineyards that were a labor of care and enthusiasm. I have wished to remember him." 

Sadness flashed across his expressive features. 

"I am sorry that you were parted," he said sincerely. 

His oblivion I treasured, and yet feared. What if he remembered all one day? How would he react to his family's lies of omission? 

"It was in the past. What inspired you?"

I had never asked before, I realized.

"We would procure mead and wine from the markets." He frowned in disapprobation. "They were poorly vinted, grown in soils ill-suited for the grapes they had chosen to cultivate. My uncle and I tired of the complaints from my family at our supper table. I decided to see what could be done." He smiled shyly. "I had not thought to find passion for the pursuit. I find that I enjoy these activities, which require me to be creative and methodical over longer spans of time." He laughed, self-conscious. "My family has many who are adept at the immediate and the tactical, thankfully, and I am left to my pursuits."

He had been called the greatest strategist that had lived. And his cousins and brothers had won battles for him. He had not been renowned for prowess in his tactical leadership on the field, though many had remarked on the warrior he had been. He had laid the board for Artanis, and she had kept faith, trudging through the tactics of the strategy. The minutiae of filling in his broad strokes he had ever left to others. 

So he was in peace too, I realized. He enjoyed the undefined, with the odds stacked against him, without a race against time, without the limitation of possibilities. 

I had often mused on the truth of him. What was he, stripped of his war? In lethe's embrace, he was charming and enthusiastic, as he carried on about his pursuits, seeking my thoughts, speaking to me of his little conundrums of soil and wind. 

Giggling interrupted his discourse then. He waved cheerily in greeting to the maid crossing us on the narrow path. She winked at him and boldly swooped to kiss him on the mouth, as lovers do. Jealousy roared in me a moment, before I reminded myself that this was another time, another man. 

"Shall I see you tonight?" She asked, pressing her bosom to his thin frame, eyes sultry in invitation. He stepped back, mortified. A dalliance of once or twice then. He had not been one to hide his lovers. 

He said apologetically, "My uncle and I mean to host supper and entertainment. Perhaps another time."

She pouted and ran away. Innocence became him, I thought, when he turned to me to apologize for the interruption. 

* * *

There was dancing and music, and libations aplenty. The woods were lit by bonfire and the sounds of merriment. There were many from the encircling towns who had come to the entertainment. 

"Do you worry for Maglor?" I asked Fingon, when I found him seated alone on one of the trestle tables. 

He poured me mead, and sat back, before saying cautiously, "Maitimo had never worshipped any Vala of Eru's make. Macalaurë was his altar, his lodestone, his providence." He saluted me with his flagon. "It is only a matter of time, Húrin. With them, it was always only a matter of time."

The time had spanned into centuries and millennia and ages of the world. And yet, Fingon was right. Their love had ruptured fate's threads, had cast down the Gods, and had spawned creation under sunless skies. 

I watched Artanis dance with her brother. She was carefree in her merriment, as Finrod spun her about, and I wondered if she grieved her husband. He had loved her fiercely, despite his dislike of her kinslaying family. 

"Her husband survived the last war," Fingon noted sadly, seeing whom I gazed on. "She forgave him all his betrayals over their marriage because she knew that the final rupture would be of her making. His cries of grief, they say, echoed off the plains of Valinor after her death." 

I remembered Maedhros mourning Fingon on plains of blood, inconsolable, stricken, unwitting to all dangers. 

"He fought Gothmog, weeping, with your father's sword. He had neither helm nor shield," I told Fingon, knowing that there had been nobody else who could tell him of that day. "He wounded Gothmog. He cremated you with your sword, where you fell. He risked capture and death. His grief was the only living thing in him for decades afterwards."

"We were lovers," Fingon confessed to me quietly. "We were lovers, briefly, drinking of a grim chalice, wedded in grief and secrecy under the shadow of the Thangorodrim."

Secrecy? Theirs was the most enduring tale of love and hope and grief in Arda.   
  
"I had loved him before. I had loved him after." He laughed sweetly and spoke plainly. "I have come to realize that it is my state of being. We were the dearest of friends once, as I hope we shall be now, in time."

I admired his strength of conviction and his peace found in wisdom. 

Maedhros was dancing with Aredhel, and the stark contrast of their complexions were exemplified by the cream of his robes against the black she wore. He was an excellent dancer, and it was illustrated in the company of an accomplished partner. 

"He enjoyed dancing in his youth," Fingon recounted. "My brother's wife, Elenwe, was his dancing partner then. They were of an age, and would dance away the nights at balls and receptions. Often, they would sneak away to the harvest festivals, to dance with the farmers and the stablehands, by firelight, removed from the airs of the court." 

"Did he have dalliances?" I asked Fingon curiously. 

"He was not for flirtations or dalliances. There was a lover, rumored of. They say that Thorondor was permitted to answer my call in Angband, due to the lover's plea to Manwë in the court of the Valar. Artanis suspected one of the Maiar." Fingon sighed. "My cousin was not one inclined to woo or wed. I had bedded most of Tirion before his betrothal to Ingwe's granddaughter was contracted by our families. The grapevine had often wondered if his celibacy was one of disinterest." 

I strove to imagine a youth on the cusp of puberty, learning of the dangers that beset his family. It surprised me not that he had refrained from dalliances then. His constitution and virility had been affected by his emotional state easily, during my acquaintance of him in Arda. It had taken direction at the hands of someone he trusted, to overwhelm his mind, to allow him to indulge in carnality. 

"It has surprised us all, that he was merely beset by other worries, that without a war he bore alone for ages, he enjoys dalliances as well as the rest of us." Fingon laughed. "His father is displeased about the seduction of his many apprentices. I cannot wait to see Macalaurë's expression. I worry for the poor maids. He has never been one ungrudging, in this matter."

"You must dance!" 

It was Fingolfin, coming to ascertain my welfare. He ushered me to Artanis, who had been charming a swarthy stablehand. 

"I was occupied!" she complained, and took my hand, leading me to the dances. She led me, as she had once led me in Belfalas, sure-footed and bloody-minded as she ever was. 

"Russandol has been curious," she told me, ducking underneath my guard, arcing about me, swift as a gazelle, throwing her head back in laughter when she saw my admiration for her mastery of the maneuver. "He is drawn to heroes."

 _My brother has loved his heroes_ , Maglor had once written to me. 

Turgon had been alike to Maedhros in this. He had been drawn to his heroes, to Glorfindel and Ecthelion, to my brother and I, and to Tuor. 

Artanis, too, had been drawn to Celeborn for his valor. 

I realized then what had to be at the source of their fascination for valiants and heroes.

"Fingon," I teased her, twirling her once, and the manhandling made her erupt into laughter, and her bright eyes attested to the truth of what I had spoken. 

"He led us to Alqualonde. He was the reason we survived victorious, why we seized the ships. He rallied our people across the Ice boldly, when his father faltered in grief. He raised defenses at our encampment by Mithrim. He mustered our men into a semblance of an army, set up scouting parties and hunts." She sighed. "Then he returned from Angband, and he was lost to drink and whoring. He was cruel, senselessly, to those that strove to help." 

Her voice caught on her words, cutting on something unforgivable. Drink, I knew, made beasts of men. Artanis's nature was to heal, to succor, and she had idolized her valiant cousin. She was bold, for had she not come to mingle freely with me, when I had borne on me Morgoth's ill-fate and sorcery? 

"Those were days of witless grief. We drank of our chalice, those left behind, after Macalaurë married and took himself away. Findekáno found his bearings in war. I found mine in vengeance. He wrote to me until his death, though I had not replied even once."

The unwitting cruelty had sent her to Doriath, to Celeborn's arms, and there she had found a deep love arrayed in thorns. 

"Are you content?" I asked her, thinking of Morwen, of my poor Nienor whom I had never held in my arms. 

"I wish my father were here. I wish my mother were here. I wish my grandparents were here. I miss Celeborn and our daughter." She sighed, smiling softly. "I am content, Húrin. I followed them once out of Tirion, leaving my parents behind, leaving all I knew behind. I grieved them alone for long ages of the world. This is my peace."

"I grieve my children, my wife, my brother," I admitted quietly, knowing that she was the only one who would understand. She had seen me raving in grief after Morgoth's sorcery had been lifted. "I hope, every time I espy a rider on the plains tall and golden of hair, that it is my son."

"You are the only Edain we have seen," she said, not unkindly. "I suspect that the Void's perturbations affected your soul, since you were once possessed by Morgoth." Hesitation flickered across her features then. 

"Go on," I urged her, curious to hear her speculation, as to why I was the only Edain that had found his way to this sunless creation. 

She did not share her speculations.

* * *

I was restless after my return to my homestead. Memories I had once made peace with resurged, and I grieved anew for my children and for my family. I had deluded myself into comfort, telling myself that one day I would find them under sunless skies. 

As the days went by, I repaired to my vines, tending to them with diligence and patience, turning to absorption in labor. Then there were potatoes to harvest. Then came the planting of the pumpkin crop. 

I was on my knees, turning over compost and soilbed, when I heard the clattering of hooves. It was Maedhros. He leapt off his mount and walked to me, smile bright on his face. 

"A hunt?" I asked. He did not seem arrayed for one, but perhaps he had ridden with his cousins. 

"Our first vin gris!" He said happily, proferring a bottle from his saddlebag. "My father lamented so when I pestered him to make tanks of steels to ferment. He is pleased with the wine. He is not fond of the reds that this grape makes. When he complained at dinner one day, I decided to see how to blend the grape to a milder wine. Carnistro was explaining to me this technique that he had seen during his travels before. We went by his suggestions. It has turned out remarkably well. I had to then bring you a bottle. I cannot wait to hear your judgement! Findekáno and Irissë rode with me. They went on to hunt. They are tracking gazelles. I am afraid I shall have to return alone."

"What are you undertaking?" He asked, curious, before I could speak a word. "Oh, are these pumpkin seedlings?" He squatted beside me, and poked at one of the seeds. His hair, disarrayed by the ride, windswept, fell forward to obscure his face, before he sighed and shoved it away, with his left hand. The gesture was idiosyncratic and undid my composure. 

He helped me plant the rest of the row, chattering away, and had I not wondered once how he must have been in his youth in his uncle's company when they had ruled together? 

"Artanis determined that she shall be in charge of our vegetable gardens. She runs the gardeners ragged. She claimed that she was best suited to this task due to her long experience with her husband's people and their diet of fruits and berries and tubers." He continued in an exasperated, fond voice. "Our vegetable crops have fallen to ruin. We suspect she has a vendetta against vegetables. We have been buying from the traders and the markets." He sighed. "It stimulates commerce. And if we say that, Artanis shall claim it was her plan all along."

I remembered Artanis at Belfalas, in that seaside keep, demanding lobsters. I remembered her on the ride from Doriath, cajoling her cousin to fish at the rivulets we camped by. 

"She enjoyed fish and sea animals the most," I said. "She grew up in her grandfather's palace, by the ocean." Or so Maedhros had once told me. 

"I wish I could remember," he admitted, sitting back on his haunches, fiddling with the soil, and the red of the earth was stark against his palms. "Perhaps I shall, when Macalaurë is returned to us. I am told that we were close."

"Yes, you were," I said quietly. 

I cleared my throat and rose to my feet, offering him a hand. He took it easily, and followed me to the trough of water I had left to wash my hands and face. The practiced ease of his motions as he poured water onto his face and hands, before drying himself with the rag that hung on a peg above, reminded me of his cousins and father when they had stumbled onto my hillslope. They were self-sufficient creatures, all of them, with little expectation of being waited upon. 

"Come in, then. Bring your vin gris. Let us see what I make of it."

I followed him into my homestead. It was sparsely furnished, with a rocking chair and a cot. I led him through to the kitchen, where there were pots and pans and an iron stove.   
  
"It has been mash this week," I informed him. "Are you as averse to potatoes as Artanis is?"

"Oh, I am not finicky," he said politely. I suppressed a grin at the poorly concealed unhappiness. 

"I have cold meats and cheese in the larder. Your cousins left me with three-quarters of a buck during their last visit." 

"Thank you!" he said, enthused once again, as he went to the larder to fetch us meat. 

Celegorm and Fingon had cleaned and striped and salted the meat, refusing to allow me to help. Perhaps it was as well that I had not aided them. My brother and I had once fallen sick eating game I had dressed. 

Túrin, my son, had been an excellent hunter, trained by Artanis's husband. I had watched him feed Nienor choice cuts of game, seared on his campfire. He had known to hunt and to forage, to live off the earth in the wilds for weeks without harm.

"Findekáno's work!" He exclaimed, setting out the meat on the platter I had directed him to. "They take me along hunting only so that I may cook for them. Neither Findekáno nor Irissë can boil water without setting someone in the vicinity on fire. Tyelko, my brother, is an excellent cook."

Celegorm had wryly said that Aredhel kept him around for his cooking. I remembered that Maedhros had once told me that Feanor and Nerdanel had been nomadic, and that only Maedhros had been raised in Tirion. Perhaps that was why all of Feanor's sons knew to cook. I did not trust myself with more than boiling vegetables and making broth. I would not be able to keep Artanis fed, I thought, amused. 

"You are two hours away from the nearest village. How does the seclusion suit you?" Maedhros asked. 

"I hardly notice," I confessed. 

When I had been a prisoner in Angband, loneliness had worn me away. I had forgotten language and civility. I had learned to converse in Quenya, in the latter days of my life. I had been starved of touch, and had drunk in desperately every touch I was given, every time I was allowed to touch another. I had then understood why Maedhros had been powerless under my hands and mouth, overwhelmed by touch. Touch, unanticipated and kind, had lured him in. He had not known to seek it outside the auspices of desire and lust. 

I doubted that I could reintegrate into society again, even under sunless skies. My father had been right, when he had once told me that thralls were marked to the soul. 

How had Elerrína stayed sane until the end? She had dwelt in her prison longer than any other thrall. How had Sauron found the muster to leave? Despite all his power, he had been Morgoth's thrall. 

"Irissë often goes days without speaking," Maedhros said softly. Aredhel had wandered alone in that dark forest, and had then been trapped by Eol. "They tell me that she is to be left alone then. Why? Why must she shoulder her memories alone? I wish that I remembered, so that I may-"

"No." When he flinched, I realized I had raised my voice and struck my fist on the table. I gentled my tone and said, "There is nothing to be gained in remembering. I do not wish it on you."

He hesitated, before trudging ahead, "Artanis said that you were my friend, that you saved my life many times. Surely there was joy, surely it cannot, all of it, have been grim."

I closed my eyes, thinking of how my brother had fallen, and why I had not rushed to hold him in his death throes, for I had chosen to save my heart's cause. Three decades later, Maedhros had given me refuge, had given me himself freely, and had freed me from Morgoth's sorcery. He had been carven thin by grief and mourning, his constitution ruined beyond repair, and his heartbeat had been weak and erratic under my palm. He had accepted my choice, and he had stood watch while I died, for there had been nobody else to. 

"Did we hunt together?" He asked, curious. "Did we travel together?"

"We did," I told him. Striving to change the direction of conversation, I said, "Fetch your wine."

He handed me the bottle. When I tugged off the cork with my teeth, a baser curiosity flickered across his features. I chided myself for my spike of answering arousal, and poured us both his fresh-pressed wine. 

It was a peculiar flavor, light and fruity, sharply acidic. I racked my brain for words meaningful and wise to judge the vintage. Instead, I said, "It would suit poultry."

"So said Turkáno," he muttered glumly. "He has been staging a campaign to bring poultry to our table."

Turgon had served poultry and dairy in Gondolin, and had often remarked that while he missed his family, he did not miss their fondness for uncivilized fare. 

I let Maedhros hold discourse, as he meandered from the matter of poultry to his musings on the water tables beneath their lands, and then to his vehement opinions on his father's forge expelling sludge into their estuaries. 

"He told me to redirect the sludge elsewhere if it bothered me so," he complained. "My uncle and I have decided to build a channel to bury it deep in the ground. Turkáno is concerned that this method will ruin the soil. Findekáno said that we ought to look into freezing the minerals and ores, and that if they were kept above their smelting point, they cannot cause reactions with the environment about us."

After finishing the bottle, I had turned sluggish, and his voice was a soothing caress though I no longer portended the meaning of his words. Chattering away, he cleared the remnants of our supper. 

"I ought to be returning." 

"Stay the night," I said, yawning. "You may lose your way. Take the cot." My head was heavy in my hands, and I meant to sleep at the table, for so tired was I. 

"I couldn't! I have no desire to inconvenience you." His hand was warm when it came to my shoulder, to urge me to rise. He saw me to my cot, and tugged my blanket over me. 

When I woke abruptly at dawn, from habit's spur, I remembered my guest. I went to seek him, and found him planting another row of pumpkin seedlings. Rumpled of hair and clothes, he made a quaint sight, and overcome, I went to him, praying that I blurted to him no secret buried in our past. 

"Good morning!" He wished me brightly. 

"Imber." I knew the word once more, in his eyes. "My people called the sunlight dappled by rainclouds so." 

"Imber." His smile turned wistful. "I cannot remember the sun."

"I cannot remember the moon," he continued. "I cannot remember the stars."

I said nothing, mourning all I had loved and lost under sunlight and starshine and moonbeams.

"Oh!" He remarked then, eyes wide in curiosity, as his palm came to linger over my cheek. 

I raised my eyebrows quizzically, and then remembered that I was the only one of my kind here, under these sunless skies. Grinning, I caught his hand in mine and brought it to my morning's stubble. His lips parted in wonder as he ran his fingers over the shadow of a beard. 

"It prickles, but pleasantly," he remarked. 

I laughed at the innocence in his pronouncement, and at the unintended innuendo. He had been fond of my beard once. I had wrapped my beard about his cock, and how he had fallen apart in ecstasy! 

"Does it grow as the hair on our head?"

His eyes were tracking the stubble down my jaw, down my neck, and I saw his surprise when he noticed the hair at the apex of my chest. I had meandered to him without tying together the laces at the top of my tunic. His gaze skirted away. 

* * *

"Thank you for coming!" Turgon said cheerfully. 

The reason for his cheer became apparent, when he dragged me to the hearthside where he was trouncing Artanis at chess. She was scowling at the board. 

"No head for strategy, this one," Turgon opined. 

"Take that back, cousin! You stared at Balrogs while they burned down your city. I killed the Valar." 

I sighed and went to help her salvage her game. 

How many times had I chanced upon her husband and her in the seaside caves and beaches of Belfalas, where they would be playing chess, and he would be deliberately drawing out the game to keep her in his company? 

"Why are you here?" Artanis demanded, plain-spoken as ever, though she was welcoming enough to pour me wine and press on me a plate of biscuits and cheese that they had been nibbling on. 

"I wished to see him," Turgon said. 

"And you could not ride to him, crippled by sloth as you are."

Turgon shrugged, offering no apology. He had written to me and sent the epistle with his sister. Aredhel had said quietly that he struggled to leave their home, fearful that he might return to find flame and death. His loneliness had been a cloak he had worn everyday, as he had walked amongst the lilies, with only the Eagles to bring him tidings. 

"You have grown out your beard," Artanis remarked then, peering at me, as I moved her knight to neutralize Turgon's queen. "You look the part of a ruffian, as the wild men of Umbar my husband enjoyed slaughtering in battle." 

"Brought you skulls as trophies, did he? You were never one for flowers and poetry, despite Macalaurë's attempts to bestir the princess in you, with his song and harp," Turgon said, teasing. She blushed. 

"Why have you grown your beard?" Turgon asked, eyes clever and knowing as he looked at me. I scowled at him and checkmated him with vindictive pleasure, applying a trick I had learned from Glorfindel once. 

"I won?" Artanis asked, puzzled, as Turgon threw up his hands in the air in defeat. "I won! Uncle! Uncle! You must see this! I defeated Turkáno!"

"He is at the forge," Finrod said, drawn by her ruckus. "Oh, Húrin! Well-met." He peered at the board and laughed. "Oh, brother, see! It is Laurefinde's signature closing move."

"Perhaps you should have played a few games with him instead of communing with birds," Artanis said smugly. 

Turgon scowled at us. Pointing a finger at me, he declared, "Traitor! Using on me the parlor tricks you learned under my roof!" 

\----------

Later, as Turgon came to see me off, he said quietly, "I loathe to think of you alone, on your hillslope. Artanis is worried too. Will you not join us here?"

I remembered him refusing to grant me entry to Gondolin despite my pleas, when I had gone to him bearing Morgoth's spells of deception. I had given away his secrecy and doomed him. 

"Perhaps one day," I said, noncommittal. Perhaps one day I would learn to forgive us both.

* * *

Turgon did not send me another summons. Returned to solitude, I found it unfulfilling. I made do, with my vines and vegetables, and hated when I caught myself looking to the plains for riders. 

I travelled to the closest village to seek company, and hastily decided to beat a retreat when I turned overwhelmed by strangers. 

"Húrin!" 

It was Artanis. She was alone. She made a striking sight, in her woolen gown of white, threaded through with golden flowers. 

"Accompany me," she asked, and ferried me about from merchant to merchant, as she looked at trinkets and gowns. My wife had not been one for baubles and finery, so I was out of my depth when Artanis sought my opinion on wares and merchandise that caught her eye. 

"Are you alone?" I asked, concerned for her safety. 

"I cannot bring Irissë with me when I come to the markets," she grumbled, holding up a bracelet to the light, scrutinizing its make. "She has little patience for apparel and accoutrements. My uncle is an ideal companion, and often accompanies me on these trips. He is occupied in his forge this week and was unable to ride with me."

"Caviar!" She exclaimed then. 

She dumped her wares into my hands, and rushed to the cart. The caviar Artanis haggled over were heaps of pink, and glistened in the lamplight. We had caviar and sheep's cheese, fresh loaf and ale, on trestled tables laid out under tall maple trees.   
  
"Turkáno has been moping," she said, making valiant attempts to not steal all the caviar for herself, forcing her fingers to remain by the cheese, sipping at her ale and making faces.

"There is a wine monger," I told her, laughing at her expressions. 

"Oh, Russandol's wines have ruined me," she replied. "Fortunately, he has not yet discovered the secrets of making mead. He has no sweet tooth; his brew turned out as medicine than mead." Then she winked at me and drank down the tankard, with gulps that would have impressed any hardened warrior. 

"I wager that I can drink you under the table," she said brightly, turning to call for another tankard.

"Artanis!" I choked on ale, laughing when they brought us four flagons.

Fireflies danced about and the breeze smelled of beeswax, as we drank and jousted with words, while onlookers watched and wagered on us. I lost my fear of crowds as we entertained the throng that surrounded us. If they thought that an Edain was displaced among their kind, they paid little heed right then, for their eyes were agog watching Artanis's decidedly unfeminine tolerance of alcohol. 

She was blinking hard and pinching her arm to stay oriented, and yet persevering, matching me drink for drink. 

"Where did you learn to drink like a Dwarf?" I asked, scandalized and impressed. Morwen had not been able to stomach more than a few of sips of wine at dinners, and that had usually sent her light-headed and giggly. 

"From the Dwarves," Artanis replied promptly, cupping her mouth as she burped. She laughed, merry, and winked at the lads that milled about, who had been staring at her in awe. "I had to while away the time while my husband stumbled from bed to bed."   
  
Despite my insobriety, I caught her before her head hit the table. Laughing, I went to prop her up, holding her steady by the waist. Her head came to my shoulder, and she yawned. 

"I won," she insisted.

I set about finding us rooms in the village inn. She woke in the morning with a splitting headache, as did I. We parted after a hearty meal of eggs and hair of the dog that the innkeeper exhorted the magic of. As we broke our fast, Artanis complained about the rippling ceiling. 

"Come visit us!" She demanded.

I allowed myself friendship's grace, despite the failure I had been as father and husband and brother. I dared to press a kiss to her brow, and her easy embrace was balm to my heart's scars. 

* * *

Turgon was relieved when I visited him. He was introverted and not given to eloquent expression. Nevertheless, he embraced me and clasped my hands in gratitude. 

"I tried riding to you a few times," he admitted. "I-" he cleared his throat. "My mind was paralysed with fear that I would come back to find their corpses, and I had to return." 

"I shall come to you," I promised, overwhelmed that he had dared despite his phobia. 

I felt unworthy that I had refused to forgive him. He had done his best, as had I. Was it right to hold grudges, after the end, after everything had come to pass? 

During luncheon, Maedhros and Fingolfin came to sit beside us, and regaled me with tales of their latest project, of building a channel for the sludge from the forge. When they waxed eloquent about materials and measurements, Turgon shook his head, amused and exasperated. 

"Nolofinwë! Russandol! I cannot enter or exit through my doors with the blockades of construction you have littered on my pathway," Feanor barged in, wearing only a pair of breeches, greasy and sooty from the forge, his hair tied away from his face in an updo of the style that had once been popular among Gondolin's wives. 

"It is temporary," Maedhros explained cheerfully. "The architect's wife went into labor. I shall set about finding a new architect tomorrow."

"I have twenty apprentices who balk at crossing your bulk of stone and sand and metal," Feanor muttered. "Can you not clear it tonight?" He shook his head tiredly, and turned to his brother. "Nolofinwë, please?"

"As chance may have it, perhaps I may have a way to grant your wish, brother," Fingolfin began sweetly. "When have I denied you?" There was love in his eyes, tempered by forbearance and forgiveness. 

"I shall require repayment, a favor or two," he continued, mellow, despite his brother's exasperated eye-roll. 

"You turn down my offers to drape you in gems from head to toe," Feanor said wryly. 

"Gems have ever suited you better," Fingolfin reparteed, waving him off. "I shall see to your predicament, brother. We have company. Pray, wash off the grime and return to us presentable." He paused, and added solemnly, "Perhaps a few gems in your hair shan't harm." 

Feanor glared at him, but nodded and trudged away. 

I began to see why they said Maedhros had taken after his uncle. Fingolfin handled his temperamental family with ease and assurance.

"Turkáno, will you assist me?" Fingolfin asked. "I would ask Russandol, but he said he had to walk to the orchards."

Turgon scowled, but went to help his father to see to clearing a path to the forge. 

"Will you accompany me to the orchards?" Maedhros asked. "I shall also take you afterwards to survey our vegetable gardens, though truth be said they are sorry graveyards of dead and shriveled plants now, with Artanis's diligence to see none prosper to yield."

"I have to admit I am curious about Artanis's handiwork," I said, grinning at the thought of her vendetta against vegetables.

"And what of mine?" He urged, charming. 

"Why not?" I said, blank of face, enjoying his genuine horror at my disinterest. I burst into laughter and said kindly, "Lead us on." 

Some of the pear trees were weighed down by fruit, green blushing red as they ripened. Others, of a different cultivar, were in full bloom, and white blossoms held bright against the canopy's verdure.

"The trees in this section bear the sweetest," Maedhros told me, and he reached to pluck a ripe fruit off a low-hanging bough. "This adjoins Artanis's vegetable gardens. I suspect the plants she composts through careful neglect have provided excellent fertilization to the soil." He inspected the skin for blemish or pestilence, and finding none, turned to me, holding it out in offering. 

I took the fruit and bit into it, and sighed at the perfect sweetness of it. I had once had candied pears, in Gondolin. This was sweeter still, and tart too. Juice burst forth, running into my beard. When I opened my eyes, I saw Maedhros watching me carefully, waiting for my judgement. 

"It is the most delicious pear I have had," I said honestly. His eyes were dark as they lingered on my beard. 

"You grew your beard longer," he murmured, and the strain in his voice was one intimately known to me.

There are cusps in a man's life, where he knows the fork of fate and destiny. Once I had chosen a tryst, unwitting in youth's hubris. 

Maedhros had chosen his brother, first and last and evermore, past the world and its breaking, and overthrown Gods in his name. And yet, he had loved me and protected me and saved me, and had held my hand until I walked into death's embrace willingly. 

Who were we to say what love must not be? 

I had walked proudly to fate once. So be it. I would walk to destiny this time, eyes wide open.

"Try the pear," I said quietly, in invitation. He reached his hand for the fruit, shy, his gaze fixed on the mark of my teeth on its skin. 

I shook my head, pre-empting his gesture, and brought the fruit to his mouth. He flushed, but boldly bit into the fruit. Juice trickled down his jaw, down my wrist. When he swallowed the flesh, he was trembling, watching me drink in the sight of him.

"Another bite?" I asked him. 

"It is too sweet," he demurred, but bit into the fruit again, and this time his eyes fluttered shut when I came to wipe away the juice from his jaw. 

He inhaled sharply when I brought my palm to my mouth and licked away the juice. Emboldened, his fingers came to my beard, curious. 

The fruit's core fell at our feet, discarded as I pulled him into a kiss. This was not new to him, for he parted his lips and let me taste him, of the pear's cloying sweetness and when I had licked it away, I discovered once again the petrichor of him, and was grateful for its constancy through Eru's make and his own. When I pulled back, I saw the prickle of beard burn on his chin and cheeks. 

"Will you show me?" He asked softly. "I have only lain with women here." 

I grinned at the irony of it, that he had taught me once when I had been in youth's flush, eager and uneducated. 

"Húrin?" He asked again. "Have I been presumptuous?"

I took him by the waist and pushed him gently onto the mound of pear blossoms. On the bed of fragrant white, he was innocent and desiring, and arched into my kisses with abandon, his hands running up and down my arms and spine, before returning again and again to my beard. When I bent to press kisses to the underside of his jaw, to the length of his neck, to suckle on the bob of his throat's apple, he thrust his hips into mine, seeking friction and release. 

"Patience!" I chided him, wishing to relearn every inch of skin and sinew. 

I brought a hand to his mouth, and his lips parted sweetly to draw my fingers in, to suckle my fingers with long, languid strokes of his tongue. When I pressed my fingers up against his palate, his eyes clenched shut at the sensation, and his breath was harsh when I ran my fingers over his teeth, under his tongue, to the corners of his mouth. I pinched his tongue once, and he jerked against me, overwhelmed, but did not draw away, his eyes fierce when he met my gaze. He gasped when I brought the fingers to my mouth and laved away the taste of him. Mischief sparkled on his features then, and he twisted himself up, using the momentum to reverse our positions, so that he was astride me, and his hands came to mine, to hold me pinned down at his mercy. 

"What is it like?" I teased him, pressing my wrists into his hold, testing, showing him my strength. "To hold a hero at your mercy?" 

"Unremarkable," he replied, nonchalant, coy in tempting as he ever had been. 

I thrust my cock against his belly, and his hold slackened in surprise. I wound my hands swiftly about his slender, strong wrists and turned our places, watching him carefully for signs of fear. There was only arousal, stark and fierce, as he gasped at the rough handling. 

"What is it like?" I asked him again, low of voice, whispering to the skin of his neck. "To be at a hero's mercy?"

"Remarkable," he bit out, through gritted teeth, his hips thrust erratic against mine in need. I had to stave off orgasm at the picture he made, of want without shame. 

I let him, for a few moments, until he was panting and edging to desperation. Then I carefully shifted the hold of his wrists to a single hand, and brought the other to cup his neck, bringing him into many kisses ardent, full of tongue and teeth. I guided the motion of his hips to match mine, and praised him softly when he came spilling into his breeches, and followed him then to spend. 

I held him as he trembled. I held him after he settled into quiescence. I held him as his fingers came to my beard again. 

"You grew your beard for me," he murmured, perceptive, pleased. 

What I wanted to do to him, to lay him bare, to skim every inch of skin with my stubble, until he was stripped of sense, until he was surrendered in his unraveling to my hands, to my mouth, to my will. 

"Could we tryst again?" He asked, enthusiastic, curious, bold. "I could visit you in your homestead if that suits you more. We could go to my bed if that is your preference. Any of it. All of it."  
  
"Do you enjoy bedding the maids?"

"Yes," he replied. "They are very kind to me." Then he frowned, asking, "Would you wish me to cease?"

Was there one way to love? I mused again. Morwen and I had been each other's, until parting. When I had loved Maedhros in Himring, when I had loved him in Belfalas, he had not sought others. 

Let him enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. He had not, in his youth. He had not, after his youth. His war against Gods had been all-consuming, and had left him hollow, with only endurance to hold him to life. 

"It does not matter," I said honestly. I thumbed the corner of his mouth. "There is a paucity of heroes. Even if there were many, I shall, of course, fight them off to stake my claim."

"What shall you do to me, if you could, if I let you?" He wondered, full of mischief, coy. 

"What shan't I do to you?" I threatened him, amused that his ways of old that had remained constant. "I know I could. I know you will let me."

He frowned then, cautious, and asked, "Were we lovers once, Húrin? You know me." The lust and languor had fled him, leaving only wariness. 

"We were," he stated then, seeing how I had gone still, seeing the flare of panic on my face. 

He might be shorn of foresight and soul's fire, but he had not lost his ability to parse mien and word to strip to the truths unvoiced. 

"We were," I admitted. "A tryst." 

His concern abated. A tryst. Love, after all, was not found in a tryst. 

A tryst was merely for mutual pleasure, to while away the time in attractive company. 

"Another tryst?" He proposed. 

I sealed his offer with a kiss. 

* * *

  
  
"Are you in your right mind?" Turgon hissed, dragging me aside, after dinner. He waved over Artanis, who was eyeing us warily. "He has been bedding every maid in the vicinity. His dalliances have been innocent and untouched by the past. Let that be! I shall tell my father if you persist; what if he remembers? Húrin!" He glared at me, furious. "Artanis! Tell him it is folly." 

"You struggled against the waves. Your body fought the waters. Your lungs and heart were strong, and your instinct for survival prevailed. Russandol threw his dagger, the one our grandfather had given him. It pierced your heart, and you ceased struggling. I found him by the cliffs, stricken, raving. I fetched him home. I let his blood, and drugged him with opiates again and again, until he calmed and fell into a senseless stupor." Artanis said flatly. "Macalaurë arrived then, and sent me home to my husband. I spent two weeks weeping in Celeborn's arms. He fed me berries and cosseted me until I tired of his care."

Turgon caught me as I staggered in horror and shock. 

Maedhros had treasured his grandfather's gift. It had been wrought once by Círdan by the Cuivenien, and given to Finwë before he had led the Noldor west. It had been one of his few possessions that had survived their journey east, the wars of Beleriand, and the fall of Himring. 

He had been fond of pressing his palm splayed wide across my heart. He had often placed his ear over my chest, after coupling, when he had been cusped languid to sleep. 

"Do you wish him to remember?" Artanis demanded. 

"He realized that we must have been lovers once," I confessed, hoarse of voice, and I felt wetness on my cheeks. 

Grief carved sharp into Artanis's lovely face then. 

"I did not tell him," I pleaded. 

"He is perceptive," Turgon replied dully. 

"Why did he forget?" I asked, endeavoring to understand, wishing to know how to protect him. 

"Oh, he had not meant to spare himself. He had only meant to save the rest of us. I dragged him, despite his reluctance and fear that it might harm me, that it might harm the creation he had devised. At the end, after we had saved the others, I plucked the white core of soul's fire, and dragged it through unspooling void, through the surge of the primordial, through the dying and remnant powers of the Gods that were unmade." Artanis grimly scowled. "I had little notion as to how he unwound Eru's fabric or how he warped creation from chaos. I acted on visceral fear, on instinct, in desperation. I imagine I lost a great portion of him to the primordial." She flinched, tugging the sleeves of her gown in unrest. "I rejoice that he has only lost his memories."

"And his foresight," Turgon reminded her. 

"If it ever existed," Artanis muttered. "I had foresight. Melian had foresight. Míriel had foresight. The Valar had foresight. Foresight was _useless_. My husband strayed, Thingol obsessed over his treasures, Míriel died, and the Valar were cast down. What purpose, then, did our foresight serve?" She shook her head. 

"Well, we are here," Turgon said firmly. "We are here now, cousin. And perhaps foresight played a part. Does it matter now?"

"What matters," he continued briskly, turning to me. "What matters, Húrin, is that you watch every word you speak to him. If he remembers, we cannot dare say how he might react, how he might fear, how he might cope."

"And there is no Macalaurë to mend him after," Artanis reminded me sharply. "If you are merely seeking passion, might I redirect you to my brother, Findaráto? He enjoyed trysts in his youth, and every tutor I had came to my lessons from his bed. Now he sleeps with my gardeners." 

"Artanis, your gardeners have little to do. You have managed to overrun the gardens with herbicidal weeds."

"Good riddance to Nolofinwë's ambitions to be self-sufficient, to grow his own carrots and peas," Artanis said smugly. "If he must serve them at our table, let him buy at the markets." 

I left them to their bickering, and sought solace in one of their many courtyards. In the darkness, I found quiet, but for the nightsongs of the frogs and the crickets. I made my way to the alcove I espied at the far end of the terrace, away from the fountain and hedges of white roses. 

"Lord Húrin!"

It was Feanor. He shifted, allowing me room on the stone bench within the alcove. 

"Seeking quiet?" I asked him. "I am glad to repair to another part of the grounds."

"I used to live in the wilds with my wife, for the court was loud and boisterous, and I did never have my brother's forbearance for merrymaking and ruckus." He sighed. "I felt an outsider looking in, often. My firstborn, he had all but claimed as his. Maitimo called him Father, until Nolofinwë patiently tutored him to address me so, and it was merely a title. I refused to let the others love him. I took them away with me, but I made a poor father. My nature did not lend itself to rearing children. When I returned to court, wearied, I found Nolofinwë ruling with my firstborn in our father's name. My wife left me. I loved Nolofinwë. I admired him. I was jealous too, for he had seamlessly substituted me in the lives of my sons." 

"My greatest grudge turned to be my greatest gratitude, for at the end, I knew that he would come to mend my wrongs, to save my sons. Our family, my children, have forgiven me for Nolofinwë's sake. I am grateful. And yet I struggle with melancholia, striving to learn their ways, striving to please them, and then exhausting myself for I cannot bear their boisterousness for extended durations of time."

"My mother struggled with melancholia," I confided. She had died a broken woman, burdened by her disposition. "I had not known that it could affect your kind."

"My mother committed the first suicide in Eru's creation," Feanor said wryly. "Perhaps I inherited my ailment from her. Periods of intense euphoria and belonging are often followed by despair and disconnectedness. They did not think that men could be affected by melancholy; they called me temperamental."

My mother had not found succor in the household. My father's sisters had asked her to stop fretting. My father, while a good husband, had been absorbed in rule and defenses. 

"In oblivion or yoked to memory, Maitimo has ever been even-keeled, and given to little fluctuation in temperament." He clasped my arm. "You cannot harm him, Húrin. You will do everything in your power to protect him, as you have before." 

"Artanis thinks his memory will not return." 

"Artanis is often short-sighted." Feanor laughed. "As am I. My brother says that we often miss the forest for the trees. Ah, there he is, looking for you. He is quite taken with you, I see."

"Father! Húrin!" Maedhros walked to us, a lamp in hand. 

Feanor patted my shoulder, went to press a kiss to his son's cheek, and took his leave of us. 

Maedhros seemed to be weighing how to extend his invite.

"Yes," I said plainly. "Yes."

* * *

His quarters were arrayed in robin blue and eggshell white, and the crafts that decorated his walls bore exquisite detail. They must be works of his father's forge. When he turned to bar the doors, I pressed him up against the cedar to kiss his shoulder blades through the silken mauve of his tunic. His hands splayed on the wood, trembling but willing. 

Taking a chance, I curled my fingers into his tunic and his cry was raw with lust when I ripped apart the silk, leaving his torso exposed. Leaving him little chance to recoup, I flung the shreds of fabric to the ground and pressed my lips to a shoulder blade, sucking fiercely until red bloomed on his skin. I repeated it down the line of his spine, until I reached the end of his ribs. I knelt behind him and palmed his arse through lambskin. His knees buckled, as he struggled to keep his balance. 

"You poor thing," I teased him, wrapping my hands about his waist, to reach the laces of his breeches. His stomach quivered under my bold groping. I raked my nails across his hipbones, and he slumped further, speaking my name hoarsely. I pulled down his breeches, and laughed when he instinctively parted his legs for me. I ran a rough palm over his cock, and he thrust into my hand in reflex. 

"Don't," he warned me. 

"Close, are you?" I asked him, turning him about so that I could view the state of him from face to cock to curled toes. I skimmed my beard over a sharp hipbone, and he gasped, bringing his hand to cover his mouth.

"Hands on the door," I ordered him, and delighted in the flush of desire on his cheeks as he obeyed me silently, bending his elbows and placing his palms on the wood. The movement thrust his torso and hips forward, and he cried out again when I ran my beard over his navel. 

He had disinclinations towards many acts of passion, when I had bedded him in Arda, his preferences cast in stone by the traumatic events of his past. He was innocent and unmarked, cloaked in lethe. 

When I dared press a kiss to the base of his cock, carefully watching him for alarm or fear, his legs parted more and a hand came to the back of my head, cupping, urging. 

Suppressing a relieved grin, I glared up at him, and said darkly, "Keep your hands where I commanded you to, princeling."

"I cannot deny a hero's whim," he said, laughing, keen in lust, returning his hand to splay over the door. 

"Whim?" I asked, thrilled by how he easily embraced our silly game. "Will you bend to my whims and fancies then, princeling?" He closed his eyes and nodded convulsively, and his cock bobbed against my chin. 

I ran my tongue down the length of it, leaving a hand slung about his hip to steady him, and the other coming to my breeches to free my cock so that I might palm it. I had wanted this, during our days in Himring, during our days in Belfalas. I had wanted to suckle at his cock, to draw out cries and gasps and desperate exhortations from his lips. He let me in this creation not of Eru's make, patient and careful so that he would not choke me, restraining his reflexes with deliberation as I learned the shape and contours of him with my mouth, curling my tongue about folds of skin, my lips tracing veins from root to tip and back. Petrichor hit the back of my throat, when I surged to take all of him. I struggled to breathe and the fright went to my cock, as one of the strongest pulses of desire I had known. I came without a touch, and my vision dimmed as I fought to breathe. 

"Careful!" He called out in alarm, withdrawing abruptly, his hands coming to cup my head as I coughed. "Are you hurt?" His fingers were gentle as he thumbed away my tears. "Húrin?"

I had spent, but my cock strived to spill in vain, my body relived the sensation of being opened to the throat with nowhere to go, at the mercy of another to even breathe. 

"Oh!" Maedhros exclaimed, as he realized the state of me. He brought his arms to enfold me and knelt before me, embracing me through the shudders of my climax. He kissed my cheeks and brow, and soothed me with soft murmurs of my name. "Even heroes need to breathe, you know," he chided me. 

"How do your maids accomplish this feat?" I asked. My wife had never put her mouth on me. 

"None of them have," he said frankly. "I did not think it was a common practice between women and men." 

"Artanis-" 

"My family is incomparably unorthodox," he reminded me, smiling, when I made to speak of Artanis's rambling about why she missed her husband. "I merely wish not to cause you harm through my inexperience. Teach me how to give you pleasure when you put your mouth on me, without cutting off your breath. If I knew once, I cannot remember." 

We had never done this before. Telling him that would lead to bestirring his curiosity, and he would strive to find out why we had not indulged in this. 

His arousal had faded in his worry. 

"I shall teach you how to please a hero," I promised, lightening our conversation deliberately, so that he would let me see to him. 

"I shall be a diligent pupil," he swore, eyes full of mischief again. I could not resist kissing his mouth, and his heartbeat was erratic against my skin as he tasted his cock on my tongue. 

I rose to my feet and urged him up. He was lovely, nude, and distracted by my touch and kiss and hold as he sought to undress me. 

"Stay still!" He muttered, squeezing my wrists in warning."I must get your clothes away." 

I was coming to love his willfulness and fell pliant, as he swiftly stripped me of tunic and breeches and underclothes. He led me to his bed and the open windows brought to us the scent of roses in bloom in the courtyard.

"You are hirsute," he said softly, when he had me bared to his eyes in the lamplight. His hand came to my chest, and curled into the hair there, curious. 

I had once feared that the hirsuteness of my kind would repulse him. The advantage of history, I thought merrily, as I clasped my hand over his and led him down my sternum to my navel and down to my cock, which had slowly awakened to arousal again. 

"How shall I please a hero?" He asked, voice thick with desire. 

I laughed and spun us about, so that he lay supine beneath me, limbs splayed, with a high flush on his skin from the manhandling. He squirmed when I dragged a cheek down his clavicle to his armpit. 

"It tickles!" He complained, laughing, helpless. "Stop that."

"More, you said?" I teased, holding him down, unrelenting, as he squirmed and laughed, his eyes bright and his cock filling. He had been ticklish before too, but he had panicked when I had attempted this. Now, there was only joy and lust, unmarked by fear. 

I brought a finger to his entrance, and he bucked against me, eyes wide. 

"It is all right," he said, striving to still, parting his legs for me. "It is new to me."

We had no vials of oil at hand. I had not been the first to take him, in Arda. I would be careful this time, and show him other pleasures before we indulged in buggery. I brought my hands to our cocks and took them into my clasp together. When I began running the net of my fingers and palm up and down our cocks, he sighed in pleasure and began thrusting into my hold. 

When we spent, as he fell back, exhausted and languid, I brought my palms to his mouth. 

"Clean them off," I ordered. 

The lewdness made him color, but he willingly took my fingers into his mouth and suckled them clean. 

"Stick your tongue out and lick the spend on my palm. I will have to smear it on your face otherwise," I threatened, grinning at how he cursed and blushed and obeyed, eyes dark with desire again.

He came to my embrace easily and placed his head on my shoulder. When his hand fell on my chest, over my heart, I mourned what I had done to him in Belfalas, when I had failed at even killing myself that he had to see to my end despite his grief. Not now, I told myself. He was in my arms, and he had forgotten. 

"Were we as this?" He questioned then. "Had we played these games?"

I had often called him strange, for his preferences in carnality. He had protested, again and again, claiming that his desires were commonplace. Perhaps they were. Perhaps they were not. What did it matter? I was wiser than I had been as a youth, and would not shame him for any act he enjoyed. He had not shamed me or judged, even in his inexperience, when he and I had been both surprised by my passion for choking on cock. 

"We enjoyed these games then," I said truthfully. 

"I must have trusted you fully," he remarked. "To allow you this power over me, when war and betrayal hounded my family." 

He had trusted me fully. I had realized this in Belfalas, before my death, when he had given me refuge, when he had given me himself freely, despite Morgoth's stain on my soul. 

In a bid to end his musings, I said lightly, "Perhaps it was trust. Perhaps it was only that you were a lustful creature, desperate to have your needs sated, heedless of all else."

I felt his mirth in the curve of his mouth against my skin. 

* * *

I came to my homestead and grieved alone, for how he had to kill me in mercy so that I had not prolonged my agony brought on by my ineptitude at dying. 

Mercy. 

Killing the thralls had been a mercy common in Beleriand. I had given the mercy to many. 

Slaying those in the agony of death throes, after the battle was done, had been another mercy common in Beleriand. I had seen Maedhros put men and orcs out of their misery after a battle was done, heedless of whether they be foe or ally, swift in his dispensation of grace. 

The mercy he had granted me had been euthanasia, forbidden by the laws, forbidden by the Gods, anathema to my kind and his. He had taken upon him bloodguilt, to gift me a painless death.

He had not strived to save himself, at the end, after casting down the Gods, after breaking from Eru's creation, after undoing fate's loom. He had expected neither forgiveness nor forbearance, from himself or from those he had saved.

Artanis's inadvertent gift of oblivion had been the kindest mercy anyone had given him.

* * *

Maedhros visited me often. He came in the evenings. We would share a meal together and then retire to my little cot, where I would touch him and kiss him and please him. Occasionally, we stumbled into games that suited us, but there was laughter even then. With practice came confidence. He had learned to feed me his cock to cut off my breath, and to retreat in time before my lungs were depleted. I had learned how to tie him down and to draw sweet pleas from his lips as I teased him past coherence. 

In the morning, he would come to help me in my garden, tut over the state of my vines, and offer me well-intentioned advice that I utterly ignored. He would keep merry chatter, as I watered and weeded, regaling me with tales of his father's battle against their ditch to drain away sludge, with tales of Artanis and her latest vendetta against vegetables, and so on. 

* * *

"Húrin!" Maedhros called, and I hastened from my homestead to find him in my yard with Turgon. 

Turgon was pale, clammy, but he spoke words of greeting, and returned my embrace. He had finally found the courage to ride, even if it was clear that it discomforted him to be away. 

I wondered what to say, for I was lost for words, staggering under the realization that Turgon had made this journey for my sake, to visit me. 

"Come, Turkáno, let me show you his pumpkin vines! He has carrots too! And potatoes. We should never permit Artanis entry to his vegetable garden." Maedhros took his arm, steadying him, and took him to my gardens. "Húrin, there are wines in the saddlebags. Pour the white today. It shall go with your beans and mash."

"I keep venison in the larder for you," I called after the silly creature. "When have you partaken of beans and mash?" 

Aredhel and Celegorm, and the rest of his family, would often gift me their hunting spoils, and stay the night in my homestead when they ventured this way. None of them were particularly fond of the mash that was my staple. 

I left them to their ambling, knowing that Maedhros would see to his cousin's comfort. I hastily made my way to the chicken coop, and selected the plumpest one for our meal. Maedhros, as the rest of his family, had little fondness for poultry. However, Turgon had liked poultry the best. He had made the journey to me. I would offer him the choicest of what I had. 

As I set to plucking the feathers from the bird, Turgon entered my kitchen, and said brightly, "Can I help? I know how to slice."

I set him to chop dandelion greens and potatoes, and winced at the unevenness of his cuts. 

"Turkáno!" Maedhros exclaimed, horrified. "Away with you! Húrin, pour him wine and keep him away from the meal." 

He scowled at the sight of poultry, but valiantly kept his silence and set to chopping and dicing. Celegorm was an excellent cook, but Maedhros was passing decent and his fare was better than my own. I poured Turgon wine. 

"Now that I have come and found your hovel unworthy, will you join us?" Turgon asked gamely. 

"I am content here," I replied, and this was an old argument of ours. "I cannot have my peas and mash anymore if I come to you."

The aroma of rosemary and roasting meat made me sigh. It was not his usual preparation. 

"You used to cook so for me in Valinor, cousin," Turgon reminisced. "I remember you would keep sprigs of dried rosemary in your saddlebags, when we journeyed together, because I found game more palatable when charred and rubbed in rosemary." Horror crossed his features then, and he asked, "How did you know? Have you remembered?"

"It merely felt right," Maedhros replied, bringing our meal of roast chicken and potatoes and greens to my table. He poured himself wine and watched me carve the meat, before saying quietly, "Would it be so terrible to remember how I cared for you, Turkáno?"

"Yes," Turgon replied immediately, spearing into his meat. "Our lives were ghastly tapestries of tragedy. _Never_ remember, cousin." He chewed the meat and hummed in contentment. "This is marvelous!"   
  
So it was. The dandelion greens, bitter and charred, accompanied the citrusy wine well. The potatoes were roasted to my preferences, lightly salted. Turgon and I exchanged knowing looks of mirth when we saw Maedhros pick at his meal, with little appetite. 

* * *

"I brought you pears," Maedhros said, coming to find me on my knees, raking away the detritus of the carrot crop after harvest.

He was wearing yellow, with green curls of embroidery whispering across the span of his chest and shoulders. The silk glinted in the daylight, outstripped as ever by the imber of his eyes. 

"No, no, you must not rip my clothes today!" He exclaimed, seeing the intent in my gaze. "My uncle had this made for me as a gift."

"Then take it off," I said merrily. "You are not allowed clothes under my roof. How can a hero sate his needs if you hide your charms away?"

He stripped outside for me, looking to the plains once or twice to ensure we were truly alone on the hillside. 

"I need to finish raking," I told him, mopping away the sweat from my brow. "Hop onto that wall and play with yourself awhile."

"My cousins are on the plains, hunting," he said tensely, obeying nevertheless. He made a sight, touching himself tentatively, running his hands from his mouth to neck to belly to thighs. His cock was rosy with arousal and left smears on his stomach. 

I had to force myself to pay mind to my raking. 

When I was done, I washed myself at the trough, and watched him touching himself staccato, lost to pleasure, lips parted. He startled as I walked to him and put my mouth straight on his cock, holding his legs spread, palming his belly. His hands came to my head, pressing me closer, and when he spilled, I drank him down. 

"You taste of pears," I remarked, adoring the seep of red on his cheeks. "Developing a sweet tooth, are we?"

"Findaráto told me that spend bears the taste of diet," he murmured. "I have no sweet tooth."

He had once worn a loincloth, because he had predicted correctly that it might prove a draw to me. He had eaten pears so that I might find him sweet when suckling at him. Even if all be changed, the effort he paid to his lover's pleasure had not.

"Come, I have a surprise for you," I told him, ushering him inside. During my last visit to the markets, I had found a tin of wax that would melt if pressed between palms. 

I tethered him prone by his wrists to my cot and straddled his back. He turned his head to rest on his cheek, and twisted his neck to grin at me. When I scooped the wax and warmed it in my palms until it melted, the aroma of pine surged forth. 

"What is that?" He asked, and then sighed when I pressed my palms to his shoulders, firmly caressing away the tension in his muscles accumulated during his ride across the plains. 

His sighs became more frequent, interspersed with murmurs of my name, as I worked down the length of his back. When I arrived at his hips, I turned about to massage up from his toes. His moans were obscene as I kneaded his calves with strength and care. 

Once, he would have tensed at a prolonged touch that was intimate without bearing the overtone of lust. Touch-starved as he had been, he had still shied away from caresses that were not under the auspices of sex. 

It was different in this world wrought of soul's fire, for he gladly let me touch him in intimacy without requiring carnality, and it was a pleasure unlooked for, under sunless skies, in a creation not of Eru's make. 

I came to his arse and opened him to me, kneading the cheeks and stroking the place in between until it loosened for a finger and then two. His hands were fisted and there was chafing on his wrists from his restlessness. I clucked and patiently continued my ministrations until he was three-fingers-full and clutching onto my digits at every twist and tug, silken inside, warmer than skin. 

"I mean to take you today," I told him. "Shall I untie you? Would you like us to face each other?"

He had been once fond of being taken on his back. I wanted him to learn new passions without being encumbered by old ones. 

"On my knees, please," he demanded, shifting to his knees to suit, spreading his legs wide to leave me room to maneuver. 

He sighed when my hand came to his hip to hold him still. When I began feeding him my cock, his head bowed and his back undulated in an arc of cresting desire, and there was little resistance to my first thrust. He gasped in shock at the novel sensation and his insides clenched about my cock. Curious, he thrust his hips back to meet me, and startled when the full girth of me was drawn into him, and his tremors about me were intense. I bit my lips to stave off orgasm. 

"Greedy princeling," I chided him, slowly taking him through the paces of it, showing him the pleasures of long thrusts and short circles. 

His soft exclamations became drawn out cries of pleasure, breaking as his breathing turned uneven. Once he grew accustomed to penetration, I sought his prostate. He had not required stimulation to the prostate to find his end once, but I expected that had come from experience. When I dragged my cock against the gland for the second time, he came, hoarsely speaking my name in fervent plea, and his orgasm milked mine too, the walls of him inside too tight and too warm and too soft as they fluttered and clenched. 

I untied him despite his silly protests, and scooped him to my chest, running my hands through his hair and down his spine. He fell asleep to my languid caresses. 

Buggery, it seemed, had held constant as the easiest means to send him to deep sleep. Maglor should have tried this instead of singing his brother's nightmares away. 

"You rode bareback, didn't you? Would you like a saddle for the journey home?" I asked him in the morning, as he washed himself in my trough. I shook my head when I saw him wincing charmingly when he poured a pail of cold water over his genitals. 

"It is freezing, Húrin!" He complained. 

"The life of a farmer. Your uncle and you have little to do. Idle minds lead to indoor plumbing." 

He rolled his eyes and bent obligingly as I poured a pail over his hair, so that he may wash the waydirt from his curls. There were goosebumps down the line of his spine. If we had time, I could have loved him in the trough, placing him on my lap and teaching him to ride me. We did not have the time then.

Horses rode into my yard. The hunters had returned. 

"Are you washing my cousin in a pig's trough?" Aredhel asked, shocked, amused. "Russandol, might I suggest a richer lover for your trysting?" 

She was attired in her usual hunting gear of a black gown and her brother's castaway breeches. Behind her, Celegorm was unburdening a mighty gazelle from his horse. The antlers would never fit in through my doorway. 

"The barbarian has no bath, as you well know," Maedhros complained, stepping out of the trough. I passed him a rag so that he may dry himself swiftly. "This was easier than trudging to his well. There are nettle bushes there, overgrown, which he has not yet found the time to weed away."

"A trough?"

"He does not keep pigs. He has the trough because he is lazy to walk to the well. As the host, so the guest." 

"You distract poor Húrin so," Aredhel said, laughing, leaning to press a kiss to her cousin's cheek. "You have become a nudist, Russandol."

"I have not," he protested, hastily dressing himself in his finery of yellow silk. 

"I support your choices, brother," Celegorm called out from the kitchen in earnest. "Nudism is a perfectly acceptable lifestyle."

How had he fit the gazelle through the door? I cursed and entered my home to find the antlers mounted on my wall. He had nailed them crooked, to have me froth at the mouth. Aredhel had picked her lover well. He matched her intransigence. 

"You lacked decor," Celegorm explained. "Aredhel and I decided to provide you a housewarming present. Húrin, your hovel reeks of sex." He amended then, "Sex and pine oil." 

"If you are going to leave the gazelle, make sure you return to eat it. My larder has no room for your hunts."

"Well, you need a larger larder," he said reasonably.

I shook my head, knowing from experience that I would not win the argument, and returned to my yard to find Aredhel seated on my homestead's steps, drying her cousin's hair, her motions betraying the ease of familiarity. He was seated with his back to her, and occupied in telling her about the complexities of brewing pastis, and why they needed a few buffaloes in their stables. 

It hurt to watch them, knowing how grief-stricken he had been each time her name had come up in conversation. I returned to help Celegorm prepare the meat so that he may stuff into our larder.

"He had forgotten our tongue, after his captivity. He spoke fluent Sindarin, but his Quenya was nonexistent. Irissë spoke to him, for days on end, as he healed, and he slowly relearned to converse in our tongue under her tutoring," Celegorm told me. "I was harsh then, to him. He came back a different man. He clung to our uncle and to Macalaurë, easily startled by wind and word. He wept in the nights and screamed for mercy from unseen tormentors. He feared closed spaces and loud noises. He sought our cousin, Findekáno, praying to be hurt by lash and knife, again and again, so that he could anchor himself in pain to the present. He gave his crown away. I had worshipped the ground he had trod on. I grew to spurn him, finding his choices inexplicable and poor, finding his coping mechanisms inexcusable. Irissë defended him to me, and we parted with cruel words spoken over my treatment of him. She rode off, and I did not see her again." 

I had heard the tales of Aredhel and Celegorm, of lovers parted by ill-fate, and of how he had mourned her until his death. There had been no other for him, as there had been no other for her. Unlike Finwë, Celegorm had not married another. 

"Maedhros had not been as you were," I realized, striking upon Celegorm's cause for judgement. 

"If he had loved Macalaurë, then so be it. He had a sordid arrangement with Findekáno. I held this against him. What was love if it was not enough? It was only later, after the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, as we struggled to hold him anchored and sane from the grief he was mired in, that I accepted that love encompassed more than the kind I knew." 

* * *

"There is a harvest fair tonight in the village where you trade. Come with me," Maedhros asked me. "There will be dancing and ale. Artanis tells me that she won your drinking game." 

"I have never seen you drink ale," I noted, drawing a pail from the well, pleased by how his gaze tracked over the movements of my forearms and biceps. "You are bedecked in finery. I will make a poor swain to escort you about."

"You are a hero," he protested. "Come with me. I wish to dance tonight."

It was futile to argue with him once his mind was made. I went to dress myself in respectable clothes, donning a serviceable tunic of brown and my riding leathers. I would make a poor showing beside the loveliness he was in brackish blue, but I supposed that he had dressed himself in an understated fashion as best as he could. I strapped on a knife to my belt, in case there were unsavory elements lurking about in the village. 

We left our horses in the pasture adjoining the square where there were maids and merrymaking. I nudged him to the trestle tables under the maple trees where I had once drunk with Artanis. 

"I have not mingled in the villages before," he said, hushed, eyes bright in excitement as he took in the dances by the firelight and the ruckus of children running about. His family had hushed up the matter of his oblivion. Little wonder they did not encourage him to go larking to the provinces. Cautious, I brought the hood of his cloak over his hair. It would not do to draw attention.

I signaled the tavern wench to bring us ale. She came back with two tankards of light summer's ale, and set before us a platter of bread and olives and cheese. 

I watched him sip the ale cautiously, and then brighten up before returning to the drink in confidence. 

"It isn't as terrible as you thought, is it?" I teased him. "Slumming with the masses?"

As we finished tankard after tankard, our spirits rose and the music turned livelier. 

"Shall we dance?" I asked him boldly, stirred by the alcohol in my blood. 

We clung to the periphery of the square, happy in each other's arms, laughing and striving to move with the music, our coordination distorted by alcohol and my pisspoor dancing skills.

"You are terrible," he complained, swaying out of the reach of my boots.

"Lead, then," I told him peaceably, delighting in the flush on his skin in the firelight and the sparkle in his eyes that betrayed his enjoyment. 

"No," he said, predictable in his refusal. 

"Complain once more, and I shall leave tied to the bed in the inn for the maids to find," I teased him. His frown was more musing than censure. I laughed, shocked by his fascination with the idea.

"If you were there," he hedged cautiously. 

"Want an orgy, do we?" I asked, striving to hide my shock with mirth. "Are you starved for cock now?"

"Findaráto advocates orgies for all. He says they are good for your health," he reparteed, laughing. Then he mellowed, and said in a serious tone, "I have little desire for an orgy, Húrin."

"Ah!" I exclaimed, realizing what he wished for. "You want me to make you yield to a stranger's touch."

"Certainly not. A fantasy," he muttered, flushing and looking away. "Merely a fantasy." 

I retreated into silence, pondering his words. He had not been in earnest. And if he were, it was dangerous territory. I would have flatly rejected the idea before. However, I knew that he was more curious than I was, in carnality. In Himring, he had had little compunction in kissing me in view of his household. He had not minded cavorting outdoors. Perhaps there was something to his fantasy, and alcohol-induced loss of inhibition led me to mull over it. 

Lost to my thoughts, I crashed into my neighboring dancers, and in alarm, reached to clasp Maedhros by the shoulder for balance. His hood fell away, and there was silence in the immediate vicinity. 

"Godslayer! Fatebreaker! Revenant!" 

They cheered, and saluted him with their flagons. He nodded politely, gave a gracious bow, and responded courteously if vaguely to their many questions. I scowled at the throng and dragged him away to the privacy of the inn. 

"Prince Nelyafinwë! Had we known-" It was the innkeeper, wringing her hands in worry. "We have only the smaller rooms left. It is the fair, you see." 

"All is well," Maedhros said hastily. "We require only a room for the night. My friend and I have imbibed more than was wise. We wished to sleep it off."

"My son, Lindir, will lead you upstairs." 

The son was a young lad. There was a boldness to his appraising gaze as he greeted us respectfully and led us up the rickety stairs, to a small and clean garret that faced the kennels. The air was heavy with musk. 

"The bitches are in heat," the lad explained apologetically, hastening to close the windows. "I shall be back in an hour, to carry away the bath. May I take your boots?"

"No, we shall manage," Maedhros said abruptly, uneasy at the thought of being waited upon. 

I had never seen a valet polishing his boots in Himring, I realized. When I had come to rule in my father's seat, I had not thought too deeply of the menial tasks that my household conducted for me. 

Tipsy still, we stumbled to the bath and washed each other. Outside, the dogs bayed, furious, at being kept from the females. 

"Shall I take you on your fours?" I asked, leading him to bed. "So many liaisons may have happened in this cot. You shan't be the first, and you won't be the last, to be bent and spread and claimed." 

His eyes were darkening in arousal, and he met me skin to skin, his lips warm on my mouth. When I turned him about, he gladly went to his elbows and knees. I pressed a kiss to the base of his spine and gently caressed his flanks, letting him settle. 

Then he stiffened, and reminded me, "The boy will return to remove the bath. We must wait."

"I say we proceed," I whispered to his skin, at the crease of thigh and arse. 

"Húrin-" Arousal was leaving his voice rapidly, substituted by worry. He turned about to face me. "I am uncertain if that is wise. It was only a fantasy. He recognized me! If my family knew-"

"He shan't harm you," I promised him, pressing a kiss to his brow. "It shan't leave this room. We needn't, if you wish. It is your choice."

"Keep me safe," he entreated softly, before bending to yield again. 

I had given myself to Angband gladly for him. I would not see harm done to a hair on his head. When I tore a rag from my tunic, he jerked, but stayed pliant to be blindfolded. The knock on the door made him tremble. Between his legs, his cock was hard. 

"Come in!" I called out. 

The lad paused at the threshold, eyes wide in shock, and shock was swiftly erased by desire as he beheld the picture on the bed. 

"Close the door behind you," I ordered the boy. He hastily obeyed, and took a step closer, as if his feet moved of their own accord, before he flinched and moved his eyes away. 

"Are you amenable to serving the prince tonight?" I queried, pitching my voice low. The lad gulped and nodded furiously, his gaze skittering about the room, resting anywhere but upon Maedhros. 

"Fetch me that wash rag. He does not wish his cries to be overheard. It would be unseemly for a prince, you know," I said softly, running a palm down the length of my lover's back.

"Are you drunk, Prince Nelyafinwë?" The boy asked then, swallowing, looking at me with skepticism. "Should I call for aid?"

"No, no. I am in full possession of my senses." Maedhros was mortified and his voice betrayed that so easily. "It is only a game."

"A game?" The boy stuttered, looking at the pair of us as if he could not believe his eyes. 

"Lindir, wasn't it?" Maedhros asked, patient in a way I never had known to be. He had been patient with me, when I had come to him a callow youth.

"Ye, my prince," the boy whispered, finally daring to look at the places where hands caressed. 

"Are you frightened?" 

"No," the boy replied boldly. 

"Stay, if you wish, Lindir. I hope you shall." 

The boy fetched the rag. He hesitated as he approached, and then blurted out, "May I touch you?" 

"If Húrin allows," Maedhros replied, and there was laughter in his voice. 

"In time," I promised the boy. "Now give me the rag." 

I silenced Maedhros carefully, and he pressed his cheek to my palm, easy in surrender. When I pressed my lips to his nape, he relaxed further. I dragged my mouth down his spine, to the parting of his body, acutely cognizant of our watcher. I kissed him open, until my tongue was suckling into him, his thighs clenching tight about my neck and torso as he demanded more silently. 

When I moved away, I found the boy peering, his eyes black in want, and the front of his drawers damp. 

"Is it as a maid's cunt?" He asked me furtively, voice catching on the taboo of the words he spoke. 

"Give him your fingers. See for yourself."

The boy required no coaxing. Greedy, he stuck a finger in, and gasped in shock at the incomparable sensation of flesh and heat. Maedhros thrust his hips back, impatient by the long play. 

"Am I hurting him?" The lad asked me, worried. 

"He is desirous and tires of waiting. Let us give him another." I dragged a vial of oil from the pocket of my cloak and poured it over my hand. I stuck my index finger in, beside the boy's, and curled about the other digit, teaching it to explore the places inside, until it confidently bent to stroke tantalizing skims against the quivering flesh that clung to it in need. 

"Is he always so tight?" The boy asked, bending to stare in fascination at where our fingers worked in tandem. 

"One of his charms," I said, laughing at the boy's uncouth tongue and how Maedhros was responding to it. I bent to kiss his testicles, drawing them into my mouth and laving them with gentle rolls of my tongue about their skin. Maedhros had fisted his hands into the bed, and was struggling to hold himself up in offering to us, overwhelmed by stimulus as he was. 

I turned him about, pulling him into my lap, straddled with his back flush to my chest. His head came to rest on my shoulder. I pulled away the rag from his mouth. 

"Take my cock into you, princeling. Give the lad a show." 

Maedhros muttered a curse, but lifted himself up to bear down on my cock as best as he could with the little leverage his position afforded. I caught his arms and pinned them behind him, throwing him off his balance, and he sunk fully on my cock with a gasp. 

"Fuck yourself. The boy is taken with the fetching sight of your arse bouncing on cock."

"The mouth on you!" Maedhros exclaimed. I thrust sharply into him, spearing him open, and that silenced him. Taking the cue, he began to rise and fall swiftly, his muscles working in increasing desperation to stave off his climax as he sought to keep himself on the edge. 

I forgot the watcher as I lost myself to the thrust and fall of our hips, until I spilled into him. When I brought a rough hand to his cock, after two or three strokes, he followed me, spending over my palm. I caught him before he fell forward in exhaustion. 

"Are you well?" I asked him, carefully assessing the state of him.

"Perfectly so," he murmured, kissing me languidly. I slipped his blindfold off. He blushed when he saw the boy before us, watching him keenly, hands busy as he handled his cock in his drawers. 

"Spread your legs. Let the boy see your hole leaking spend." 

The sight was enough to make the lad spill, for the third time that night. I envied him his youth's vigor.

"Your eyes are nothing like the paintings," the boy blurted then, standing awkward before us in his soiled clothes. 

"I hope you found enjoyment," Maedhros told him kindly. "Let it be our secret." 

The boy nodded fervently, and stood there staring. I wondered how to turn him away from our room so that I might tend to Maedhros. 

"Thank you for your company," Maedhros then said, taking away the onus of parting from me. "Your sweetheart, whom you danced with tonight, shall be very fortunate to have you."

The boy blushed, grinned bashfully, and ran away. 

"I had eyes only for you, at the dances." I told Maedhros, laughing. "And your gaze was wandering to all and sundry. Are you sure you have not been fancying an orgy?"

"I had never mingled in a village before," he reminded me. "It was novel, to be surrounded by strangers."

It had been his way of old, to swiftly scan every chamber or throng he navigated, to filter foe from friend, to seek to turn the crowd to his favor. While he had been called reclusive, he had been known too for his diplomacy. 

He let me clean him with a damp rag, and let me caress him to my heart's content. 

And that night, he woke in my arms, startled. 

"What is it?" I asked him, fretting. Had the ale harmed him? Had inviting the boy triggered darker memories in him? 

"A queerness of the heart," he murmured, letting him soothe him to sleep. 

* * *

A few weeks later, Artanis rode to my homestead. She was alone, and came bearing pears. 

She looked horrified by the clumps of tomatoes ripening in my garden. 

"Our uncle must be never allowed to visit you," she declared, turning her back on my vegetables, entering my home in dainty dudgeon. 

"Is he well?" I asked, setting out for her a platter of salted, dried fish. 

"Macalaurë has returned," she told me then, clasping my hand in hers. "We found him a week ago."

"Has he remembered?" I demanded, worried. 

"No, no, nothing yet," Artanis said soothingly. "Macalaurë means to keep it so."

A queerness of the heart, he had said, when he had woken abruptly in the middle of the night. 

* * *

  
  
Maedhros came to me less frequently, occupied with seeing to his brother's integration into their family. In my youth, I would have taken umbrage and shaven my beard in spite. That had been a boy courting fate.

This was destiny I had chosen. And then, one day, when I met him on the threshold of my homestead, there was finality writ stark on his face. He looked older, and there was fatigue etched in every line of him. 

"Aure entuluva," he said softly, and held me as I wept.

"I am sorry," I apologized, again and again, voice thick with tears, burying my face in his chest, clinging to him in fear. His hand came to my heart, knowing, and I apologized again. 

"Whatever for?" He asked gently. "It was only fate, Húrin. It was only fate, and you bore it with grace."

"Not at the end!" I exclaimed. "I could not even-"

"I was there," he reminded me, quiet of tone, resolute. "I was there, Húrin. I feared to miss, for what if I struck you elsewhere and merely prolonged your agony with bloodloss? Love steadied my hand as I flung the dagger to your heart."

He let me cry myself into silence, holding me patiently in his embrace, as patient as he had once been when he had fetched me from Melian's care.

"I came to apologize for your loneliness. I cannot remember the how of it, if your children are somewhere in these lands, if your Lady Morwen is somewhere is these lands. I cannot remember the how."

"I wish you had remembered none of it," I confessed. "You were untouched by grief." 

"I have begun to remember flashes, partial, incoherent in time," he explained. "They come to me at the oddest of times. I remember the glint of gold of your hair under the autumn sun when you rode away from me."

"You gave me an apple," I reminisced. 

"Did I?" He asked, thumbing away the tear tracks on my face. He ushered me to the kitchen and set about to brew me tea. I watched him clatter about, in my homestead, with the confidence of familiarity. 

"I rode here in such haste today that I frightened your poor boy." 

"My poor boy?" I asked, my thoughts still far away, on plains of blood. 

"The boy at the inn, Húrin. Were there others? He could not keep his eyes off your muscles or your cock that night. I fear we may have corrupted the youth."

I shook my head at his silliness. The boy had eyes only for Maedhros, from the beginning to the end of that interlude. 

"You were blindfolded," I reminded him. "Cease your hallucinations."

"I have taken the boy under my wing, to teach him to read and write," Maedhros replied cheerfully. "He married his sweetheart, did you know? They are quite content together. He has confessed to me once or twice that he had never seen a cock as large as yours. He said that his sweetheart would be jealous of my good fortune."

"You sought the boy again?" I asked, spluttering. "To teach him literacy? The reason I took you there all those years ago was to ensure anonymity!" 

"That village is on my way to you."

It was not. His cousins rode down the plains without larking about in villages. 

"I have even broken their tendency to address me in fanciful honorifics."

Godslayer, fatebreaker, revenant. He had been gracious the first time, when we had been dancing, and taken it in his stride with courtesy, without letting anyone know that he remembered nothing. What now? What now, when he knew the old truths of him? 

"It breaks my journey evenly at the midpoint, and your boy serves an excellent broth of lamb."

He hated lamb. 

I shook my head at his silliness. As Artanis often complained, he was quick to take an interest in others outside his family. He did not have Finrod's natural ease in a throng, or Fingon's ability to endear himself to both the beggar and the king. However, he was curious, and curiosity carried him along. 

He set my tea before me, prepared with milk and sugar as I preferred it, and sat across me. He was wearing a robe of silk. It was ruined by the journey. He had not intended to ride out then. He had remembered something and had rushed to me.

"I was with my uncle," he explained, when I reached across to tug at the sleeve of his robes. "We were doing the accounts together. Then I remembered, abruptly, that you walked into the sea. I came here."

"I had best send you home," I said, worried. 

"I saw Tyelko on my way. I told him where I was off to."

His brother. The tea stung my palate as I gulped it down for courage. 

"How is Maglor?"

He hesitated, before answering carefully, "He is mourning his lover. Artanis is drawing him out slowly. She has been in delightful spirits. I am told that they were close confidantes once. I cannot remember his life or our interactions, but I wish I could, so that I might strive to comfort him as he mourns."

Later, as I watched him spilled nude on my cot, languid after sex, I remembered the first time he had spoken those fateful words. The smile he had worn then as his only ornament had been a soft and lovely thing, wistful and quicksilver. 

"It was a time as this," I told him. "It was a time as this, after I had fucked you senseless, as I lamented about the rain, that you told me the day shall come again. Your wit cheered me up then. Later, I grew to love the phrase, to see in the words a deeper meaning, and I made them a war cry, a defiance, a promise."

He laughed, saying, " _Aure entuluva_ is the oldest phrase of love's promise in Eru's creation, Turkáno says. Varda swore to Melkor, at their first parting, that the day shall come again." He beckoned me to him lazily, and when I complied, pressed a kiss to my collarbone. "If I spoke those words to you, I doubt I was trying to amuse you with my wit." 

The epiphany rammed into me fierce. Seeing the dawning realization on my face, he kissed me softly. He let me hold him down with brute strength and take him again. 

In the morning, he complained about my manhandling and its consequences, but had a bright grin on his face as he took his leave. 

As he turned to mount his mare, I caught him by the waist, and kissed him once again, fervent, wishing I knew how to speak the words that were stuck in my throat. 

I did not see him for twelve weeks after that. 

* * *

When he returned, he came with another kind of knowing in his eyes. He held himself taut, as if braced for an argument. 

I wished to spare him all that I could. 

"It is all right," I said hastily, rising to meet him from where I had been pressing grapes. 

The year had brought the first harvest of my vines. I had wanted to ask him how to ferment the juices. I had wanted to ask him if I should use tanks of steel or casks of old oak. 

"They will stain your feet," he said then, forgetting himself, coming to lead me to the trough. "You must wear boots when pressing the grapes," he chided, pouring a pail onto my feet and then reaching for the pumice stone. He worked swiftly, settling into a squat, taking my feet into his lap one after the other as he scrubbed, until my feet were rosy and unstained again. He set away the pumice, and accepted my hand to rise to his feet. 

"Your clothes are ruined," I remarked. 

"It happens ever so often when I visit you," he said, laughing. "Oh, Húrin! I wish I knew how to tell you the tidings I came with." 

"It was a tryst," I said firmly. 

I had anticipated this for weeks, for months, for years, from the first time I had laid him out on a mound of pear blossoms. I had thought that I had girded myself for this, and yet found myself trembling in loss. 

"It was not a tryst," he replied, resolute, and I saw the man who had flung unto my heart a dagger of mercy. "It was not a tryst to me." 

What was I to reply? No, it had not been a tryst. 

"You must leave now," I said. "I wish to be alone."

"Húrin-"

"A few weeks," I said, wishing to cease the discussion. "I shall visit your family in a few weeks."

* * *

"Do you think that if I travel, if I ride wide and far, I might find kin?" I asked Turgon. 

He had come to my homestead, braving the journey, determined to rouse me from my brooding of late. 

"I suspect you are the only one of your kind, Húrin. The likelihood of finding others is close to nonexistent," he said frankly. Then, before I could argue, he said, "If you set out on the journey, I shall accompany you."

He could scarce ride five hours without being seized by phobia that he might return to find his family dead and lost. 

He was the truest of friends. 

"How goes your writing?" I asked him. I had been lost selfishly to my heart's troubles that I had forgotten to enquire of him. 

"In leaps and bounds," he said cheerfully. "Artanis managed to inveigle herself into the enterprise. We have found, wonder of wonders, that we are excellent collaborators when we choose to set aside our squabbles. So immersed in our undertaking has she been that our gardeners have brought a crop of radishes to yield."

I opened the first bottle from my vineyard, and we toasted friendship and radishes. 

* * *

I had been placing fences about my chicken coop when I saw a solitary rider on the plains. I took a deep breath to ground myself, and prepared to receive him. 

"Húrin," Maglor greeted me. 

He was as he had ever been, sharp-eyed and thin, golden of voice, pale as Feanor or Aredhel were. 

He did not have Finrod's charm or Maedhros's easy kindness to strangers. We settled across my table in awkwardness, before he cleared his throat. 

"I am glad that you are here," he began stiltedly. "I am grateful that you have been my family's succor, again and again."

"I have no claim on him," I cut in, wishing to spare us both the facade of social niceties. "He is yours."

Maglor's lips quirked in a ghost of a smile, and he seemed truly amused, for he said, "I have come to understand recently that my brother is not fond of being considered a possession to be bandied over." 

He returned to solemnity again, and continued carefully, "We are learning to be equals now. We were not, in Arda. He had his secrets and I had my pride. I wished him entirely dependent on me, so that I may possess him in full. I hated his self-sufficiency and resourcefulness, for it drew others to him. I fretted over his preferences in carnality. It took his death to teach me the true make of love."

"He learned the lesson before I did, for you taught him. After your summer in Himring, he lay aside his armor of detachment. He made amends with our cousin, Findekáno, for they had parted in bitterness after their arrangement was ended. He made amends with me, for we had been estranged after my marriage. He set aside his pride and weathered our possessiveness. And when he spoke to us, love it was that hued every word."

"You changed him. _While we live, let us live_ , he said, and refused to cling to pride and grievance. Pride had sustained him for a very long time; it had led him to recovery and held him to sanity. I feared for him when he turned to a different source to mine his courage from. I did not know then what you knew, what he knew. Pride felled our people. Pride felled Morgoth and Manwë both. My brother won his war because he drew his strength from love."

He reached across to clasp my hand in his, and said plainly, "I did not come to speak of claims, Húrin. I came to thank you." 

Love, they said, offered the lovers no victory. 

It had not brought Morgoth, Varda, or Manwë peace. It had brought only sorrow to Aredhel and Celegorm, to Idril and Maeglin, to Finwë, Míriel and Indis, to Nienor and to Túrin. Artanis and Celeborn had found no contentment despite their love for each other. I had buried Morwen beside the bones of my children. Maedhros had killed me in mercy. Maglor had wandered for lifetimes, in mourning, keeping faith. 

Even Ungoliant, creature of the primordial that she had been, when spurned by Morgoth, had eaten herself to death. 

And yet, Luthien had mined her courage from love, and she had claimed victory. She had wrought for herself an ending of her choosing instead of what was deeded by fate. Had it been her tale that had inspired Maedhros? 

"I promised to sing for you, once," Maglor said. "I have not sung for an audience in a very long time, not since the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. I am afraid all I remember are lullabies."

"A lullaby then," I said, smiling, heartened by his offer of friendship, for I recognized the token for what it meant. 

"Sleep, sleep, happy child,  
You were born when all creation smiled-"

Had he sung it to his brother? I had learned other lullabies in Gondolin, from Glorfindel, who had been fond of children. I had sung a few to Túrin many a time, holding him swaddled in my arms. 

He did not have Daeron of Doriath's mastery over vocal technique, but his voice was imbued with mastery of a different kind, a mastery of emotion in every consonant and vowel. His voice was gold, stark and raw, as it shaped towers of song in my homestead. 

"Sleep, sleep, happy child,  
Even if creation wept,  
Even if winds turned ill,   
Even if fate and famine came,  
Even if heralds called war-"

I staved off my tears, embarrassed, only to find that his eyes were clenched shut, and there were tears on his face; his voice had turned molten. 

"I shall be your heart's balm;   
here and there and everywhere,   
passim.

I shall hold you safe,  
here and there and everywhere,   
passim. 

Sleep, sleep, happy child,   
heartsong, soulfire, lodestone,   
here and there and everywhere,   
passim,   
passim,   
passim."

* * *

"You came!"

Artanis rushed to embrace me. She was clad in red. Seeing my surprise at her attire, she scowled, and said, "Irissë insisted. She said that if she is to wear white, I must wear red. It would be only fair, she claimed." 

"That does not sound sensible," I pointed out. "Red suits you." 

She tossed back her head of gold, perfectly coquettish when it amused her to be. 

"You will ruin the braids," I teased her, offering her my arm. 

Fingolfin, it seemed, was the only one thrilled by the event. The others were staying well out of his way, as they congregated about the alcohol.

"He has wanted them married since the first time Irissë came back stinking of Tyelko," Fingon told me, placing a goblet of wine in my hands. "We have been drinking for weeks, to calm ourselves when he carries on so about floral arrangements that suits Tyelko's hair."

"Both your sister and Celegorm have the same hair," I said, befuddled.

"Pray, keep that statement away from my father's ears," Fingon muttered, casting a wary glance at where Fingolfin stood harrying Maedhros about the heft of the awning they had raised. 

"It requires another fold to drape as we intended," Fingolfin was complaining. "Can you see to it, please?" 

"Uncle, Irissë is on her way. We have no time. Here, let me ask Artanis what she thinks. Artanis! Do you think the awning's drape requires another fold?"

"Shut up, Russandol!" Artanis yelled back. "Leave me out of this. You were the one who encouraged him to plan the wedding. Irissë and Tyelko were perfectly content traipsing about and mating on the spoils of their hunts." 

The picture her words brought forth was horrifying. Artanis, as ever, excelled at drawing horrific pictures out of mundanity. 

"She is a princess! She must have a wedding. It is most improper, otherwise, to carry on so," Fingolfin held. "And the drape must be redone, Russandol. See to it." 

Maedhros sighed and called for a ladder. 

If I had been able to raise my children, would I have been as Fingolfin, keen to see them married in pomp and splendor? 

"I see you have taken shelter on the sidelines of the circus," Maglor commented, joining us. Artanis muttered protests when he patiently set to fixing her braids. 

"Where is Findaráto?" Fingon asked then. 

"I went to wake him earlier, and found him under a pile of men," Artanis replied. "He is unlikely to show up for the wedding. I cannot wait to see him flail under our uncle's wrath!" 

Fingon sighed, and went to retrieve their cousin. Turgon, I noticed then, was hiding behind a tree, nose in a book, his fine robes hitched up so that he would not draw his father's ire if he showed up with dead leaves and twigs. 

"Macalaurë! Húrin! Artanis!" Maedhros called to us from his perch on the ladder. He had redone the folds of the awning and was fussing about with the creases of the fabric. "Does it look better now?"

"How could it not?" Maglor wondered, in a tone as dry as bone. "Anything looks a sight better with you plastered on it, brother."

Maedhros laughed, startled, and then swore as he lost his balance. Fingolfin cursed and came running to break the fall. They collapsed together in a pile of limbs, Maedhros's laughter at odds with his uncle's chiding. Worried, I made to join them, but Maglor winked at me. 

"You wished to distract your uncle!" I exclaimed. 

"Russandol knows how to land on his feet. He has scaled enough cliffs with three limbs," Artanis reminded me. "Look! There is Irissë! She was on her knees, I see. Tyelko has already received his wedding gift then." 

I chuckled at her words, for it was true that Aredhel's gown betrayed too well the activities she had been indulging in. There was a flush of color to her pale cheeks that spoke of passion's aftermath. 

"Irissë!" Fingolfin exclaimed, running to her. "Did you fall? Are you well? Oh, the state of your wedding gown!" 

Artanis sighed and went to join them, to save her cousin from Fingolfin's fussing. 

"Macalaurë, could you fetch our father?" Maedhros called out, from where he was fiddling with the bouquets of flowers draped about the awning.

"Fetch him yourself," Maglor replied. "He barred himself shut in the forge when Nolofinwë asked him to change his robes to match Tyelko's." 

"Come now, brother. Nolofinwë is merely enthused that he can finally see one of his children wed."

"He would have been merely enthused if you had not encouraged him so," Turgon muttered, joining us. "Nolofinwë is not merely enthused. He has taken leave of his senses. None of us have had a moment's peace in months."

"We have not planned a wedding together before," Maedhros remarked. He was, I realized, truly enjoying the madness. 

"How the mighty have fallen!" Turgon declared. "From warring with the Gods to orchestrating weddings. Irissë and Tyelko had not even wished to marry. You harried them into this, cousin."

"Nolofinwë has longed for a wedding in the family," Maedhros said cheerfully. "And none of us are inclined to marriage. Irissë and Tyelko seemed the easiest to persuade."

Feanor arrived then, and kept his brother engaged in conversation, until Aredhel and Celegorm were ushered in. The robes Feanor wore, I noticed, matched the bridegroom's. So he had catered to his brother's whims, after all. Perhaps it had been merely the ruckus that had driven him to the quiet of his forge in the first place. 

When Fingolfin became tearful as his daughter and his nephew spoke their vows, Feanor carefully extricated himself from his brother's company and gladly left him to Maedhros. It bore the mark of a longstanding dynamic, I mused. Given Feanor's discomfort with the emotions of others, and his difficulty in reining in his own, I was unsurprised. 

"That is his nature," Turgon opined, when I pointed out their interaction to him. "We cannot fault him for his nature. He braved my father's raucous wedding planning for months and ventured out this day for our farce!"

If my mother had been treated with the same forbearance by our family, would she have had an easier life, despite the melancholia she had been afflicted by? 

Maglor sung for us. We threw posies at the wedded. 

Then there was dancing, and we cheered on as Aredhel kissed Celegorm languidly, lost to a world of their own. 

"I must say that the wedding is growing on me," I said, turning to find Turgon rubbing away a tear from his cheek.

"It was not the worst idea my father has had," he admitted. 

Artanis came to find me for dancing. 

"I am a ghastly dancer, and you know it," I warned her. 

"Your musculature makes me want to weep," she replied, laughing, mischievous. "Dancing is my opportunity to learn it closely."

"Seeking substitutes to Fingon, are we?" I teased her. She was the only partner of my experience, who knew how to dance well with me. I suspected it was because she led. 

"Findekáno and I have made amends," she said then, her mien turning solemn. "He is-" she swallowed her words, unusually tactful for once. 

"He is constant," I told her, remembering the man who had stood unflinching before Gothmog's axe, remembering the man who had kept faith and led his armies to massacre. 

"My family earned their notoriety for constancy of heart," she said softly. "Celeborn and I were poorly matched in that, and yet we were equals in other aspects."

"You cannot have perfection in a match, Artanis," I told her truthfully. "A match must begin with respect, and perhaps it may end in love. It cannot bode well if a match begins in love and fails to nurture respect."

"Yes," she said, pressing her face into my shoulder, striving to even her voice. "Celeborn and I did not respect each other. We loved desperately."

"Fingon will prove an excellent match for you." 

I had once told her to consider a match with Turgon, for the same reason. She craved for constancy, the likes of which had not existed outside her family. 

"I know not the harm he did you in the past. The decision is yours, Artanis. He will not demand more than you wish."  


* * *

I found Maedhros in the orchards, in merry conversation with one of their gardeners. His face bloomed in a happy grin when he saw me, and he waved me over. They were discussing the poor yield from the orchard that year. I joined them to mull over irrigation and manure, at length, before the gardener apologized for taking us from the celebration.

"Have the festivities turned dull?" Maedhros asked me, after the gardener had left. "What drew you away?"

"I fancied a walk in the orchards," I said truthfully. I had kissed him first, in this new world, underneath these trees, amidst fallen blossoms. "What drew you away? It is unlike you to leave when there is dancing to be had." 

"A flash of remembrance," he said quietly. "I remembered how I went to Tyelko, with a horse-shoe in my hand, for that was all we had found of Irissë in that dark forest. I found it difficult to breathe, and needed air. I had little desire to be noticed, so I came away to the orchards."

"You must not bear this alone," I cautioned him. What if he had been riding? An attack of panic, when he could not find his breath, could cause him to fall and break his spine. Frightened, I clutched his wrist. 

"I am careful," he promised. "I am always careful, Húrin."

I would speak to Artanis, I decided, and let the matter drop.

"Are you angry with me?" He asked then. 

"Your love for him mantled you as Godslayer, fatebreaker, revenant," I remarked wryly. "I have always known what it meant."

We fell quiet awhile, lost to our musings.

"A pear before we return to the feast?" He suggested, plucking one from the branches above us. I raised my eyebrows as he bit into the pear's flesh. 

He winked, daring me. 

I grinned and took the fruit from him, glancing at the mark of his teeth, before biting into its sweetness. It tasted of petrichor. The imber in his eyes was lambent as I passed him the pear. 

"Grape and apple and pear," I remarked. "In the old world and the new, you have fed me your fruits, here and there and everywhere."

"Indeed!" He said, laughing, taking my hands in his. "We have our covenant sealed by fruit, _passim_."

Quietly, without mirth, he continued then. "I remember drinking in the sight of you under the sun before the glacial lakes of Himring. _You shall never be lovelier and I shall never see you so again_ , I thought, frightened, grasping against fate. I had been foolish then, for I had not known that covenants as ours outlast fate."

Covenants as ours. I had stumbled into it the first time, borne to him on eagle's wings. Then I had chosen, in this world of no god's make. 

Overwhelmed, I drew him to me and held him fiercely in my arms. 

I inhaled deep the scent of him, of petrichor, ever my heart's ease.

There was a time to embrace and a time to relinquish. 

* * *

I led him back to the feast, and parted with an embrace, kissing his brow in benediction. 

"There you are!" Maglor said, coming to us. "I was looking for you, brother. You had asked me to save a dance for you." 

I watched them kiss, two hearts as one, eyes wide open, shorn of fate and foresight, stripped of pride and possessiveness, equals at eventide. 

* * *

Turgon and Artanis demanded that I write the foreword for their book. 

I hesitated, despite their encouragement, despite their pestering. They plagued me incessantly in my own home, making trips together every few weeks to persuade me. 

"Perhaps one of your family-" I said. 

"Nobody knows our family as well as you do," Artanis said bluntly. "You loved us. You succored us. You forgave us." 

"What shall you title the book?" I asked, succumbing to their persistence.

" _Passim_ ," Artanis replied promptly. 

" _Passim_ was my father's oath to Fëanáro," Turgon explained. " _Here and there and everywhere, I shall follow you, brother, to all places, from the beginning to the end, and after._ "

I put quill to parchment, and wrote. 

"The world was all before them, where to choose  
their place? with their souls their guide;  
they, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,  
through creation made their solitary way."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

>   
> Sunset is maintained at a [Dreamwidth repository](https://the-song-of-sunset.dreamwidth.org). It is a set of stories that can be read as standalone or as a full alternate universe.


End file.
